Tumble Dry

Taking the plunge

2010-01-14T22:17:00.002-05:00

Not the Polar Plunge or whatever the January-jumping-in-a-frozen-lake nonsense is, but the blog plunge. I have moved everything including the archives over to a new version of: The Wink

I'd love it if you came with me. It's as easy as my name: http://www.amandamagee.com

Bear with em as I work out the formatting kinks.

:)
-Amanda

When Dad is away...

2010-01-08T10:46:00.000-05:00

We watch Say Yes to the Dress and do each other's hair.

It's an indescribable kind of bliss.

Thanking my lucky stars for these girls and the daddy that gave them to me.

.

Fearing the Jinx

2010-01-07T10:32:00.002-05:00

I've not written in far too long, but there was a thought process involved in the absence. Our house went on the market in July. It has been an ordeal to keep it show-ready and free of thick disillusionment as we've been battered by a dead market and insulting offers.

Toys, clothes and dishes have all been kept in their places. We've made our beds, wiped down the shower and hidden any semblance of a personality. The girls have been stoic as box after box of things have been shuttled to dark corners of the attic. Trips to a storage unit, walk-thrus of other houses, not to mention the innumerable showings of our house have led to Briar say things like, "Mom, can we go and live in a hotel for 100 days? And then can we just eat at restaurants and that way every night there won't be dishes and some can make the beds for you." My little worrier, be still my heart.

Emails from friends and BlogHer have me all too aware of how long it's been since I've written. So here I am.

I never thought it would happen. We've worked so hard, dreamed for so long...

Our house has sold.

They are lovely people. It is everything we could have hoped for and more.

They want to close on January 29th.

Grandma and Papa arrive on January 28th.

We have decided to rent for 6 months.

We have yet to secure that place to rent.

Work is insane.

The girls are magnificent. Everything is perfectly on track, yet feels perilously close to out of control.

Looking at a place at 1. If you'd do me a favor, cross your fingers that it works.

xo

-Amanda

If you only listen

2009-12-13T17:25:00.003-05:00

Strange how conditioned we are to create patterns and routines, to transform doing to repeating, rather than experiencing or living. Between the rigors of work, inconsistencies of schedules for parties and open houses, and technical hurdles, I've not been writing. I could, but I let myself slip into this step 1, step 2, step 3 and repeat sort of monotony.

*****

Finley is singing, literally if she is awake she is either singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or the Alphabet Song. She is the echo of every child that has gone before her, suspended for this brief moment in slurred words, skipped letters and uninhibited and tireless repetition. Don't get me wrong, the way she does it, the curve of her jawline as she lifts her head to sing louder and the way she sets one foot in front of the other while cocking her head, these are pure Fin.

I am more aware today, as I hoss myself out of the unforgivable morass of apathy, that tomorrow, or soon thereafter, this will be over. My third daughter, my only Fin, my final performance of this chapter. Twinkle Twinkle into ABCs into "I wuh-ya mommy." It is the tattered page I'll turn to years ahead when she no longer wakes to sing to me.

I am listening, and knowing that I will not always remember unguided, I am writing. I am chronicling these moments of Christmas magic.

*****

I realize unforgivable seems a harsh word, but here it is, whether it's lifting another spoonful of food you know you shouldn't be eating, taking another monstrous drag off the cigarette you swore you wouldn't smoke, or uttering aloud the criticism of your spouse you swore you'd keep quiet, at some point it is indeed unforgivable.

Happiness is a choice is more than a line on a tshirt. It's just this one life we get. There isn't a day in it that ever gets experienced in exactly the same way. We must remember to do what we hope, to stay true to aiming for the life that we want, the love, the memories whatever it is.

It is our choice.

It is our price to pay if we don't.

Who is trying to sing to you right now?

Whose arms did you wiggle out of to do the dishes?

Go listen, kiss and live.

It's just this one time, make it count.

*****

Believe

.

2 + 2

2009-12-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

When I saw this:

This suddenly made much more sense:

Rhythm is a Dancer (or a daughter)

2009-11-27T16:18:00.003-05:00

When it's just us, we rock the house costume drawer style.

Giving thanks for all that I've got and all that I love.

.

There but for the grace of God go I

2009-11-17T22:43:00.003-05:00

I played with Fin this morning, walked Briar to school, sang to Ave. I didn't fully understand the depth of my blessings.

::::

You say it, but as a parent, when you hear the story, for a moment you go there.
You imagine the scenario.
The kids.
The challenges.
The marriage.
The beauty.
The life.

The stroke.

Kids waiting at home while your husband holds your hand praying for you to pull through. "We need you. We all need you, honey."

It is inconceivable, and yet, it is real.

Anissa is at the ICU. Peter is with her. The circle around them grows larger with each tweet and post, but at the center, it is still a woman fighting for her life.

Pray for Anissa. Imagine for a moment, that it's you. Or your spouse. Live this moment and every moment after that you can, making good on the time you are given. To help Anissa: Think of her and her family.

.

Larger than life

2009-11-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

The girls are getting bigger. Bigger in the sense of oh-my-god-are-their-feet-growing-by-the-minute and getting bigger with regard to how very much they understand. Disagreeing sparks unfamiliar nuance, a furrowed brow a trembling lip or a sudden scrambling for attention. WE are paying heed, but just as we think we get it, something new emerges.

"Mom..."

"Yes, baby?" I say as I examine an eyebrow.

"Are you almost done, I'd like a little private time for potty." Blue eyes as pure as the summer sky await my response.

Shocked, I nod and scurry out of the room.

There is role playing with, "I now declare thee husband and wife," and "well, I'd like to, but I have to work."

Hey there, cat's in the cradle.

I am trying to grasp how three burgeoning bumps have manifested into three gangly girls, all opinion and puppy dog eyes. I see how quickly they are gaining us, their speed, questing and size all threatening to eclipse us as we struggle to manage the details, emotions and appointments.

I try not to superimpose the idea of pregnancy, but I realize how little they'll still be as they fall in love, move away and start families. My greatest fear is that for each inch and ability they grow, so does their space in my heart. I cannot fathom how, when they finally fledge, I'll survive it upright.

.

Today and always

2009-11-11T15:49:00.002-05:00

There aren't words enough, to satisfy the gratitude for the life that I enjoy.

To veterans yesterday, today, tomorrow and every minute between— thank you.

Open to Interpretation

2009-11-06T16:09:00.002-05:00

There is direction, there is interpretation and then there is Fin.

"Give me a thumbs up, Ave."

"Now you, Fin."

And, scene.

.

Endings

2009-11-04T14:31:00.003-05:00

I am not ashamed to admit that for every five books I read, I turn ahead to the last part in at least 4. I like knowing, somehow if I know that the hero is triumphant, the love is requited or that the child is saved, I can more easily enjoy the story. I suppose to some this may mean that I am not getting the full effect of the book, I will comfortably say, it's my choice.

More and more I am learning how little a say I have in life. I can impact journeys, shape beginnings, but, when it comes down to it, I cannot change endings. The layers between loss have become more slender, the stretches of time between one passing and the next seem uncomfortably close. Actually, I think it is just the predictability, the knowing that no matter whether I could turn the to the pages ahead or not, there are more. Always, there will be more.

Yesterday a man died. A father. A husband. A cousin. A son. An uncle. A friend. A teacher. A soul. One minute he was here, as potent and unstoppable as John Wayne, and the next, he simply was no more. I am reeling, wondering how I could so completely have missed the possibility of this twist. This loss.

It has been said before, but it feels as if something greater should have precipitated this. After the news settled, there was more. Relaying and narrating. Bearing witness to the realization of loss is a page that, given the choice, I would not read. Naked shock. Years whizzing before glassy eyes, a nearly imperceptible whoosh of air.

I am so very sorry that Ted has gone. He had a twinkle and a ferocity of hug that always made me squeeze back in the way you only do for some people. I am perching softly as those who loved him longer reminisce. There is laughter, but more then that there is a kind of stillness in the silence of reflection.

It is between those layers, when there is no speaking, when his spirit seems most present.

May you sail peacefully, dear friend.

.

Burn

2009-10-26T10:38:00.002-04:00

She usually points at the stained glass window and breathes a reverent, "Ah winnow, mama. Ah winnow," stretching out a pink finger and staring wide-eyed. This morning, going down a less travelled staircase, she was drawn to first the Choir Room and second the Sanctuary.

We looked at the pictures of choir directors in robes and standing beside pianos, then at the faces of singing congregation members. "Ah singin' singers sing," she nodded. I smiled, taking her hand and leading her toward the door. She held her arms out and said, "Mama, 'old me?" She settled in my arms and we slipped down the stairs, admiring the window and the shapes the light cast through it onto the floor.

When we got down the stairs she craned her neck, the honeyed light through the bank of windows in the Sanctuary was too great a pull. Her body leaned away from my own and I slid my hand behind her to keep her from falling.

"Look d'at, mama. S'dat?" She turned to me, waiting for me to say something that would explain the halos of light. I began to give a dismissive and vague explanation as I went toward the door, but something pulled me back. We walked to the door of the Sanctuary and stood at the threshold for a moment. She didn't push or pull, or even say anything, her head just scanned the room.

I stepped on foot in as my nose began to burn. The landscape of gently fraying tapestries shining under beams of gold and green light held me. Our heads turned together and looked toward the back wall, nondescript dark wood paneling and cabinets open to reveal inexpensive canisters of coffee and the various paper accouterments necessary for large coffee service. Finley put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Mama, ember."

I looked at her, my eyes burning as tears raced to the surface and cascaded down my cheeks. "What, honey?"

She touched her forehead to mine and then leaned back as she said, "Mama, member?"

I nodded and said, "I do, honey. Mama does remember."

I have no idea if Finley was really saying what I heard, but standing there bathed in the light of so many Sunday School memories, the smells of old tomes, standing coffee and aged rooms, I remembered my grandfather and his love. For me, for my grandmother, for my mom, for life.

He loved so much. I remember now.

Here's to loving and remembering.

And, go!

2009-10-04T14:29:00.002-04:00

I am all too aware of the inevitabilities of aging. I'm not talking about the lines that are at first paper thin and then later, like grooves in the yard, revealing the preferred trudging path. Or the shift in color, my morning, pre-shower and make-up face erring on the side of sallow as opposed to pale. Those passages I am, if not entirely at peace with, at least prepared for and managing.

The inevitabilities that are currently weighing heaviest on my heart are of a different measure of time. My memories are laced with mint scented walks to school, little hand-written notes accompanying snacks waiting for the latch-key Amanda and elaborate shrubbery fortresses for Star Wars figures. There were t-ball games and vacations, birthday parties and bus rides downtown. They all merge in my mind to create one sort of meandering, yet cohesive sense of a childhood.

I do not remember the orchestration of events or the balance of wanting and getting, needing and yearning. Now, as I live those same years on the other side of the reflection, I am daunted. It occurred to me that there is no when, no when there is enough time, when we have the money, when we get the swing of it.

There is simply now, followed excruciatingly swiftly by what they remember. As I wince from the near-misses and barely-there's I am in the midst of the creation of their memories. Three little girls collating and cataloging the entirety of their youth in each of these days.

We are month past the first day of kindergarten, one field trip down, a first invitation just received and school pictures ushering in potlucks and PTA. This is not even touching on the songs being learned and the lush toddler dimples and folds that are growing ever more distant.

I had been thinking that I would know, that like the grace I thought I'd acquire as a woman and the growing out of breakouts and moodiness, there would be this discovery of lightness and ease that would guide me into enrolling the girls in dance, conquering the play date code of conduct. I would slip free of the cloak of less-thanness.

I would feel comfortable, proud and accomplished. I wouldn't walk away from tucking the girls in and fight a lump in my throat as they whispered, "And soon, I'll do the ballerina class? Right, mama?" and "Tomorrow night will you be able to cuddle with me?" Instead I still end each day thinking I have not measured up, whether for time, money or attention.

I know it isn't the classes or the perfect packed lunches that will be their memory, it will be unpredictable threads in between, the time we drove a little longer just to hear the last song, or the way we let them hold the ketchup themselves in a restaurant. I risk, each time I strive for perfection, missing that thing that is perfect to them.

For Avery.

For Finley.

For Briar.

For Sean.

For myself.

I get now, that it is this moment, this very moment that is the most important. I may never get them into dance or to the circus, but what I can do, and what I absolutely must do, is give them this moment in the truest most present way that I can, because it's not my idea of perfect that matters.

.

Layers

2009-09-27T21:52:00.003-04:00

Not more than a couple of weeks ago I was marveling over my survival of kindergarten. I had thought it would be like the first day back to work after having Briar, keening and begging. I remember trying to unearth what had to be a different reality, it couldn't be possible that I was supposed to leave my perfect, vulnerable first-born with someone else. All day.

Five years later I can still see myself sobbing in a chair with my mom on the other end of the line. I was pleading with her to make it ok. I am not sure if I wanted permission to stay home or something else, but I sought an answer and solace that no one had. Now I find myself in a similar situation, this time it is bigger, the scope of my wishes.

Avery has been speeding right alongside Briar, with new mannerisms and preferences bubbling to the surface each day. Whether it's her arms crossed, eyes wide, "That's very inner-tresting," or "Mom, can you just stop touching my hair now? I can kiss you to make you not sad," I am in awe of her unstoppable self-discovery.

Finley is equally immersed in a full-throttle development, hers being both physical and intellectual. She longs to be as big and capable as her sisters, but protests vehemently is she feels at all displaced from her roost as the baby. She runs, jumps, claps and exclaims, but lingers with cuddles, "ode me's" and "I wuh yuh's."

I am frozen by the way time is hurtling forward, lines blossoming across my face, all the while the girls' faces become more chiseled and their flirtations and interests explode in waves away from me. Farther with each experience. We were in Connecticut a couple of weeks ago to visit family. We stole away to tool around New Haven. I hadn't realized that visiting a place so dear to my grandfather would affect me so deeply.

It was a beautiful day, the girls were content and adorable sitting in the back seat with all manner of toy, snack and sleep prop imaginable. Sean and I were next to each other in the front seat, each of us entranced by the new sights and the overall beauty of the day— no deadlines, no chores, just the open road. I stuck my head out the window and made the girls laugh as I closed my eyes and drank in the timeless feeling of sun on my face and wind in my hair.

At one point I snapped a picture, and it is the looking at that picture that tortures me.

I know we don't live forever. I know we have the best days of our lives and more. What I am having trouble managing is the idea that he is gone, that I will be gone, that time is marching on and that I don't get freebie minutes to figure it out. No sooner have I made a mistake or forgotten something than I am forced to consider the next thing. Move on.

What if I move on after the wrong thing? How do I manage 3 perfectly distinct daughters? Control the fear when someone singles out one, or when I am frustrated with another? I am rambling here, I know. Rusty from too much time away.

It really comes down to this— I am a mom. A daughter. A wife. A sister. A writer. A runner. A goof. A sentimental. I fear being too misshapen by trying to do certain things well and allowing others to slide. I cannot be perfect, but sometimes, it feels like if I don't try I am failing.

+++++

October will be here soon. It will be the month I try to focus more on living than dying. Come November I'll give El Dia de Los Muertos its due, but for now it is on la vida. Mi vida.

.

Predictably so

2009-09-15T23:28:00.004-04:00

There isn't a parent in the world who hasn't reached this milestone and exclaimed, "Five year old, hardly seems possible!"

And even knowing this I find myself watching Sean putting the training wheels on the birthday bike and marveling, "Five years, it doesn't seem possible."

Truth be told I've been saying it since she woke up, "Briar! Tomorrow you'll be five years old. Five. Years. Old." At first she looked at me with excitement, but as the day wore on the look become a gently withering sort of, "C'mon, mom, it's been coming all year. Are you really surprised? I expected more of you?"

****

I can say that it is one of those perfect examples of time's treachery and mockery. Here today, gone tomorrow, and yet, yesterday is still so perfectly here. The smell of newborn skin, the burn in my lung and legs on that first family walk to the park, the ache of learning to nurse, the first day back at work.

I had no idea how much I would love being a mom and as I enter this new phase of being a mom to a student, I realize I am as unprepared as ever. The thing is, I didn't know you could shine brighter. I didn't know that you could sparkle brighter than when you took your first step. The triumph of your first bite delivered by your own hand with a big girl spoon. Your first play date. First big girl bed. First you were right and I was wrong.

But there you are, radiant as the day I first laid eyes on you. You are breathless with excitement, torn between sharing and replaying the events for yourself. I am hungry to take as much as you'll give me for as long as you're willing. You are, even with the addition of two sisters, my baby.

I wanted you more than I have ever wanted anything. I wished for you, worked for you, and wept when I thought you weren't coming. And then you were real. On the way. I pored over all the books I could find, weighed every decision, imagined every possibility, and counted the minutes until I'd hold you in my arms.

I know that tomorrow as we celebrate your fifth, we are entering a new era. I will do my best to be what you want and who you want in the way that you want. I can't promise I'll be perfect, but I can promise that I will try my best and love you in the wide, open way that you have taught me.

****

Mrs. Kowalski talked about how you found more sparkles than any student she had ever known. Not surprising when you consider that your are, in the purest sense, a sparkle yourself.

I adore you, sweet Briar Davie.

Is that you?

2009-09-08T12:37:00.006-04:00

I have been feeling it for some time now, but like the unwanted stare of a stranger, I have turned away, denying it. I have felt the gentle, yet persistent tug, but have been unwilling to face it. This hand that beckons grips me without touching, it is pointing rather than pulling.

I move forward with the days concentrating on keeping pace, not getting ahead or anticipating. It seems enough to offer just enough resistance to keep from speeding, so fast have these last few years been. No one seems to be bothering me with this uncharacteristic slowness, no one is asking me to hurry.

Today it hit me that they are unworried because they are not here. No one is watching or judging. I've fallen behind of my own will. I can stay here, but it is no more a victory than the runner who does not lose for never entering the race.

And there it is again, that feeling, small and familiar, but stronger than before. This time it's pulling me and I know I cannot recoil. This is love and life. Briar is asking me to go with her, to celebrate and join her in today. Now.

My perfect, little, baby Briar is ready and if I am to keep from missing it, I have to go. It's time for school.

She is ready because of me, not in spite of me. I wish this success didn't make me feel as if I were splitting down the middle. I am so proud of her.

.

Ah-mo

2009-08-30T21:31:00.002-04:00

I suppose it might get old, this writing out the phonetic spelling of little kid words, or more specifically the reading of it. I've gone back through my archives and read some of my old posts. There are many I'd rather have gone, the style, the content or the absence of editing all making me blush. I don't strike them from the record, knowing that in the same way that there will be memories I'd rather didn't exist, so too will there be less than perfect blog entries.

My legacy for the girls, part memories we created together and part my retelling of moments they may not recall, is something I hope will be as rich as it is authentic. There have been starts and stops, pictures and blanks, but there is a thread. A gossamer line of our life together that will carry on after our paths spider and carry us to different stages.

[Enter a bit of maudlin here] I hope when they read entries like this, they'll no how from the moment I began typing the sentence about our paths, rather than "our path," I felt the hot prick of tears stinging my eyes and an intense ache rose in my throat. I want them also to know that just as I felt I might dissolve into a fit of tears that would surely last for days, the phone rang. Their dad. They;ll likely remember us working. Working during the day. Working at night. Working on the weekend. They may not remember my time at home with them, may not know how often I crept into their room to press my lips against the soft indent where their jaw lines met their ears, careful not to wake them, yet all the while wishing they would stir. We do work hard, probably always will, but even in the thick of it, there is a connection that sees him calling me just as I feel as if my heart may break.

We share smiles and tears over the things they say. Avery, hard at work in the bathroom, "Know why I do it this way mom?" she asked through clenched teeth. "No," I say, "Why?" And she nods and says, "It's just what humans do." I replay the interactions at the park. "So she held this clover out to the ducks and the ducks looked at her like, 'um, yeah, at least toss me a crouton, kid." I explain, "And then all the duck toddle toward her and she starts whispering 'I love you duckies. I'm so sorry, but I don't have food this time, but I promise you that maybe next time I could bring you some,' and I'll be damned if they don't listen to her."

We are busy and driven, but there is always the axis, the role of parents to three spectacular girls. Each day I become more aware of how frightening a gift this really is. How ever will I sustain the distance that becomes necessary? How will I manage not getting to witness every moment? To not always be where you start and end your days?

Ah-mo

Finley has become so verbal, such an incredible vocabulary and desire to communicate. I marvel at the new words each day, celebrating and mourning. I was thinking the other day that between the teeth, the sprinting and the counting, baby days were over. She gave me her look, this shoulder hitched up into her chin, lips pursed, eyes dancing, nose wrinkled look followed by wide eyes, a nod and, "Ah-mo?"

Milk. Mom. Still.

I break as I say yes and she explodes in a laugh and then leaps into my arms or flops onto the floor to nurse beside me. I won't deny the intensity of my completion in her still needing and wanting this from me. She wraps her arms around me and sighs contentedly, "Ah-mo," as she snakes a hand between my elbow and side. I kiss her hair and she looks up at me.

Flecks and sparkles from a life, fusing to create the terrain of my journey. I will revisit these precious grooves. My girls and my life.

.

Still Here

2009-08-25T10:30:00.003-04:00

Ever hear the one about the mom who finally had a health hiccup and proceeded to completely lose her sh*t?

No?

Check it out.

Sorry to have been absent, somewhere between Chicago and normal I lost my way. Been burying my head in babies and daydreams. I suppose there are worse things to do. I've missed this though, this place where I wax euphoric on my family.

If I'd had my head on straight I'd have shared with you the way Finley almost broke her leg and how through the experience she reminded us how to carry on and be present in all that you have, rather than adrift in the not having.

I would have told you that Avery says, "I am feeling really a'frushrade and I am so angry," instead of screaming or stomping.

You'd know that Briar brings lumps to our throats as she quests for new words and valiantly tries to keep up with the pace of her emerging girl. The highs and lows and irrepressible passion of life at almost-five.

Then, quieter, I'd let you know how Sean has been, how he has stayed right beside me, unerring in his assurances that everything will be fine. Until last night. I'd tell you that the fear I have been searching for in his face finally came and at that moment I was overcome with gratitude for the way he had been hiding it.

I am still here, loving and living. I see calmer waters just ahead and I'm shooting straight for them, if it takes me a while to reach them, just know I'll be back.

.

Loops

2009-08-13T10:59:00.002-04:00

I find the moments lately to be like tiny pulls in a sweater, as the even surface of my life shifts. The girls are growing faster than my heart and mind can bear— first days of school, thank you's from a baby and the burgeoning countenance of a young woman. I trace my finger over the pulls, the once taut weave of helpless and able now loosened, ability mounting and futility rising.

I want to hold things back, keep the teeth from springing, the strides from lengthening. It's hard not to feel them pulling ever closer to the day when they'll parent their own children, turn doting eyes upon lovers rather than parents. I watch the lines upon my face, the smudges of age on my hands and the unwelcome sensation of wanting to rest and I know that it is beyond me/

They are my babies, that will not change, but my chest aches with how everything else is destined to end. Nursing, holding, fixing.

I've made no secret of choosing to see joy in this blessing of life with three girls. I find myself clasping Sean's hand, laying my head on his shoulder and whispering, "They're beginnings, right? Not endings?"

These pulls in my sweater are new stories, new loves, new ways, but at their start, they are my babies. My life.

H2Fun

2009-08-01T06:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my birthday, I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit dubious about the idea of spending a good deal of it on a raft in the Hudson. The Tramps were shooting a commercial for SOC during a white water rafting trip. Ever game, I went along, biting back a bit of whining about the weather. Because, seriously, it was chilly. And wet.

I chatted up the guide as we waited for the bus. Yes, a bus. We go high glamour for birthdays 'round these parts.

We paddled, floated and then swam. The water, as it turns out, was perfect. I slipped out of the raft and into the river, my pfd tightly cinched and doing its job I bobbed about in the water. Every so often I'd turn and stroke into the current, sending water sluicing over my body and the delicious burn of exertion running through my legs.

At one point I joked that I felt like a navy seal as the charcoal sleeves of my shirt blended into the water. "Did you say navy seal?" the guide asked. "Did you know there is a navy seal approach to getting back in the raft? Wanna try?" I looked at him and asked how as the rest of the group watched. I imagined the number of ways a woman could embarrass herself by "putting your back to the raft and then lifting yourself in a backward somersault up and into the raft."

They waited. I hemmed and hawed. And then I thought, "What the hell?"

I may not get high marks for grace, but it was the most fun I can remember having in a long time. Empowering, invigorating and unforgettable.

I couldn't have asked for anything more than the chance to feel strong, alive and loved.

Thanks, you know who you are!

Inevitable

2009-07-29T16:13:00.004-04:00

You hear about it all the time, people's blogs being found out. A family member, a co-worker, a friend. I'd never really considered what I might do, and really, I imagined that it was unlikely to happen to me.

Enter frosty stares, chilly glares and angry mares (self-indulgent rhyming seems appropriate in a post addressing people being mad at me for what I write.)

I don't quite know how to handle it— do I apologize? defend myself? justify? carry on as if nothing has happened?

I'm really not sure.

I feel fairly grounded in my right to write about my experiences, but I can cop to crossing a line. (Abba-dabba-doodler, you were heard, considered, and I hope honored.) I really don't want to strike this blog and begin anew without names and using veiled locations etcetera.

I think perhaps what may be more appropriate is to understand that people are going to think what they are going to think. If I write it I need to have stones enough to handle it when they stare and point or look askance at me and my family.

I think I've addressed the offending posts, not that this particular person would admit to being here reading and judging, spreading her take. I know she's here. I know how she feels. I don't begrudge her those feelings.

I am, however, not going to stop being who I am or carry the burden of her ire. I am sorry if she felt slighted by what I considered to be a true account of my experience. I won't write about it again.

I am getting back to what is most important, which is what I can participate in and contribute to— my family, my home, and my community.

Here's to peace, even if it is just promising to not be rude. I can do it, can you?

Wistful City

2009-07-25T10:25:00.003-04:00

I have loved Chicago, I really have. As far as cities go it is beautiful with soaring buildings and architectural triumphs that delight the eye. The gardens are magnificent and for as large as it is, what I have seen has been clean and inviting. All of that being said, I find myself wishing I was with my family.

The moose, oh how Avery would have squealed.

The mermaid, "like a sea princess" Briar would have gushed.

A street performer in head-to-toe-silver next to larger than life statues? Would have stopped them in their tracks.

The funky mirror thing? Three daughters— mirrors...'nuf said.

And Sean, I find him around every corner, in beautiful signage and umbrellas, in couples holding hands and dads lifting their daughters.

I miss them, I adore them and I thank them for helping me see so much magic in Chicago. I'll be home soon.

Finless

2009-07-21T22:17:00.009-04:00

I've been struggling with how to describe the ache, it is as intense and consuming as anything I've ever felt, from mourning to puppy love. I suppose, in a sense, it's both. Finley is nearly fifteen months old and in less than 30 hours I will leave for 3 days for BlogHer 2009. I did it last year, but she came with me. She was on my chest the entire time. She nursed happily, cooed contentedly through sessions and gave me something upon which I could legitimately focus if, say, I got terrified by a phalanx of bloggers I admired in the hotel hallway. It was also sinfully decadent time alone with her, as her older sisters stayed back at home with Sean.

This time she'll stay home with her sisters and Sean. I cannot expect her to stay engaged, rested or quiet during the round the clock activities. I also don't know that I can expect her to want to nurse when I get home or trust that my body will still be capable. She is, and I say this with the full understanding that I am belaboring the point, my last baby. This is the last baby I will nurse, the last full summer of diapering,the last summer before having a school age daughter.

It's inevitable that these things will happen, but I can't help feel that in some way I am hurrying time along and that is simply not my intention. I hope (feel free to chime in here please!) that this is a lesson.

That it's ok to go to a conference about something that has helped you to discover who you are.

That if you are lucky enough to have two parents, you should have one-on-one time.

That we must live in each moment.

That mom is strong.

That you can do it.

And so like Fin's first dip in the ocean.

And her immediate impulse to leap to me.

I am going to remember the squeals of delight and splashing laughter. Despite wanting to cling to my girls, I'm going to chase the surf rather than run from it, swim away from shore, so that I can be reminded once again, how sweet standing upon it can be.

.

Tides

2009-07-13T15:23:00.003-04:00

It's been more than a year since I wrote about the heartache of life's demands. It's actually the heartache of my own desires, but that is so hard to admit, isn't it? Whether you are a mom or a wife, a civil servant or a student, to admit when you desire to have something or do something that has nothing to do with altruism or good will, but really just comes down to this is what I want.

Sean and I have gone round after round about time, whether it's time for ourselves to work on projects unencumbered or to simply be together. He can say it without guilt or hesitation, "I miss my wife" or "I want some non-kid time." I can barely utter those words for fear of some imaginary rod coming down and branding me an irresponsible mom.

I've been trying to do better at things, a hair appointment here and a date there. The introduction of toddler Tuesday has been lifesaving as it gives me a kind of license to revel without overtly demanding something. Overall I think it's good and that I have things figured out and then something happens.

It came like a shot of lightning through a clear sky.

September.

Kindergarten.

Weaning.

No more babies.

It's July and come fall I'll have one daughter in kindergarten, one daughter in preschool and another experimenting with sentences and pedals. My perfect place as the axis of their world is shifting and, in an act of futile desperation, I am seizing a last wisp of ruffled nightgown and baby tendril.

Today was a blur of green sparkles and Elmer's glue, pear-juice laced kisses and laughter. I sidled along casting dollhouse shadows with faeries and scarves. With any luck I'll turn these last hours of now into days and as we hurtle into the first autumn of school days, I'll have left a trail of seeds that will be perennials, bright and showy. Forever.

.

You'll Never Know

2009-07-09T16:53:00.003-04:00

We were swaying to the lullabye, our reflection keeping time in the hazy mirror. I watched us, her hand on my arm sliding to and fro, her face drawn in a lazy smile, an expression of utter contentment on both our faces. I imagined her standing beside me, long limbs and taut muscles electric with ability and a life thick with things that have nothing to do with me. I squeeze her as I crane my face into press against her cheek.

Remember this baby, hold this squeeze for later.

She smiles and points, "Bay-bee. Uh bay-bee a mama!" I grin and point back. I step closer to the mirror and sharpen our reflection, my attempt to fill more of this sliver in time. Minutes being choked by days that turn into night and then morning before I know it. Longer necks, brighter eyes and the cruel slash of a perfectly pronounced word, "Ummmm, juice."

I felt myself deny the laptop and the emails it held, deciding instead to define this afternoon as more memory than accomplishment. We danced there before the mirror for a while. My hands cupped her body, the entire length of my arms at work cradling her long torso and legs. Her belly pressed into mine as she cocked her head to look back and forth between reflection and real.

"It's me. I am right here and right there. Right here holding you."

She softly shuffled her feet and shimmied her body closer into my arms. Tinier and closer.

"I'm always going to be your mama, sweet Fin. And you know what? You know what my littlest you?"

She extended her neck and waited, a grin upon her face as I pointed to the mirror.

"You will always, always, always be my baby, even when you are the biggest of all."

We smiled at each other and ourselves and I tried to imagine how this memory would taste years and years later. Like the traces of sugar on a wrapper, I think I'll find sweetness and dust and the tiniest sensation that i beat the system and got a little more.

I waited a while longer before laying her in the crib, though her eyes were drowsy and she was ready to go. I traced the dimples on her elbows and touched my lips to hers until I felt her start to giggle. Then I put her tenderly into her crib, whispering how much I loved her because you never know when it will be the last time.

On second thought

2009-07-05T13:35:00.006-04:00

Found myself getting my overly-sensitive nose bent out of joint over things beyond my control. Again.

Does it amaze anyone else how we fall into self-defeating ruts, whether it's not working out, falling behind on chores or getting sucked into the vortex of giving a rip about who likes you and who takes you back to the meanies in fifth grade? I'm too old for this. I'm a parent, aren't we supposed to be beyond this people?

I have a handle on eating right, at least keeping complete pigstyness at bay and of practicing what I preach, but man alive the relationship dynamics get me.

Morose, blue, self-pitying and impotently pissed, that was me this morning. Gross.

Enter iPhoto, Fin and Sean.

Salvation.

So while I'd really prefer it weren't an issue, I'm going to ignore the clouds some people bring, and focus on the abundance of blue sky in my life.

.

You Meaning

2009-07-01T15:50:00.002-04:00

I find myself chronicling time from when Fin joined our family, really from the positive home pregnancy test. I suppose it has to do with that being the most recent milestone, but I imagine it being more because it was when the ribbon of our family met at each end. Our magnificent bow, complete with frills and knots and new whispers of color.

Lately our soundtrack, already pealing with laughter, exclaims and stampeding feet, has been peppered with a raspy new element.

I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said each hour brought new sounds, words. I've been listening, amazed by the explosiveness of it and finding myself more witness than participant. A few days ago I decided to engage, responding, sometimes with my best guess, other times with certainty thanks to dimpled elbows and pudgy fingers gesturing me along.

"You want some juice?"

"No."

"You want to read a book?"

"No!"

"Oh, Finley, you need me to change your diaper?"

"NO!"

Fin, our sweet family, exclamation point. I know these "no's" are yeses, said it with passion and twinkles, hands moving with Fosse-flair. And so I take the "no's" and treat each as yes, bringing drinks that were declined, reading stories that weren't requested.

But when I ask for kisses or swoop in for a cuddle I always find myself wrapped in yes. A cool, soft cheek against my own, a soft and steady pat upon my back, legs pressing at my side and the jut of a chin tapping repeatedly at my shoulder. A nodded yes.

My riddle solved.

I admit it, I watched

2009-06-22T21:59:00.003-04:00

I have never watched a full episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8, but tonight, the girls asleep and Sean at work, I watched. I kind of wish I hadn't. This parenting and marriage thing is not easy. I write about the beauty of my children and my life, and while I mean every word there is, of course a dark side. I have my eye-rolling moments or my wishing they would just for the love of all that is good go to bed moments.

None of us wants our foibles to be on display or to have someone weigh in on something based on their limited perspective. I've read the rants about the riches and perks, but at the end of the day it's still a marriage and kids. The amount of energy, commitment and perseverance needed is sobering.

Listening to their interviews I thought at one point as Jon talked about the divorce requiring communication and how it might help, "You bet it does dickhead, but so did marriage," and then I bit my tongue. Who the hell do I think I am to judge him. Sure he's on tv, sure he is annoyingly laidback and exudes a palpable air of "Whatever, my shit doesn't really stink," but he is also privy to so much that we don't know.

I want my marriage to work. I want not to screw things up for my girls, but there but for the grace of god I can see myself in this kind of failure. Kids are hard. Marriage is hard. Life is hard. It's also breathtakingly beautiful, but I don't believe there is a person out there who hasn't had one outweigh the other to the point that it sours you.

Tonight I am grateful that despite some times when it has seemed bleak and some nights when I thought I was truly not capable of making it through bedtime without screaming, my kids are sleeping and I miss my husband.

We have made it through another day. So tonight, after watching that show, I am reminded that it really is day by day and each one requires work, love and biting back things that you have no business saying.

Let's play nice and preserve the love that we can, eh?

You'll Forget

2009-06-12T21:42:00.002-04:00

Once upon a time I hated the input. I would tense each time I felt their eyes on me, anticipating the, "Oh, don't waste a minute," and "One day you won't be so excited," and on and on. My experience was sacred. my emotions my own, the first of their kind.

Five years later I understand my place a bit more. I know that while my feelings are sacred, there is a thread that runs through us all, an unstoppable, unavoidable, unforgiving truth. I know that the grizzled checker and the overly-perfumed, touchy-feely woman at the store both know my path.

It does go fast. Mercilessly so.

I am as aware of the inevitability of my aging and death, as I am of my children's growing up and moving on. I am sick with obsession and protest, running from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button all the while turning Darius Rucker on auto-repeat. I cannot make up my mind, and I suppose in some ways I am grateful for that. I think to accept the fleetingness of it all would be tragic, but so too would be the constant hand wringing.

I find myself each day having a new perspective on my performance—

I am failing, working too many hours and saying no to Play Doh.

I am awesome: organic food, bedtime stories and slow dancing with dad.

I yelled. I loathe myself.

I managed the stroller, scooter, bike and babies. Park, bath and cuddles.

Other times I am almost divided, wishing I could just work or just parent. Or, as embarrassed as I am to admit it, just laze about. I think this moment in time of being ashamed of professional aspirations and sheepish about stay-at-home envy has got to be the zenith of my discomfiture. Or maybe it's not.

Maybe what they say about the teen years is worse. The angst and constant battle of wills.

Or maybe it's the post teen years of perceived obsolescence.

What I know tonight is that despite how easy it is to forget things, I remember briar's first laugh on Christmas Eve.
I remember Avery touching me and saying, "You my Manda?"
And I am hearing Finley say as she pulls away from a third kiss, "Ayyy yawve ooo."

I am letting go of not signing up for dance class and for being late for check ups.

I am finding a way to tell Sean that I miss being a couple.

I beginning to understand how different and precious my relationships with each girl are.

And, I am passing through these days, each rife with their own bliss and agony, like an automobile on a coastal highway at daybreak, marveling at the beauty of the fog all the while hoping its unchangeable inconsistent ways don't trip me up.

If I were to die tomorrow, which I desperately hope I won't, but know that I could, I hope they know two things*: How very much I love them and how hard I tried not to screw up.

*When they are teenagers I am going to read this and pretend they said it.

Blam

2009-06-04T21:53:00.005-04:00

"I'd really like to go for a family walk," I whispered to Sean behind my hand as we finished dinner.

"Tonight?" he asked.

I nodded and he smiled. After we cleared plates and washed hands we headed out the front door. The girls were beside themselves. Briar clambered into the wagon next to Fin as Ave bee-bopped on the sidewalk saying between bouncing curls and loud giggles, "I'm going to do my super run."

We went much farther than we'd intended to go. Sean pulled the wagon with me running down the sidewalk with Ave, sometimes behind her, sometimes wickedly ahead of her. Briar hopped out for the last block and did her thing, running ahead as if she would never stop, confidence and peace thick in her wake. Fin literally sang, her face set in an unfettered state of bliss. It was as close to the perfection of summer nights at age 8, as anything I've felt in a long time.

"Will you water the flowers in that bed if I take the girls up?" He looked to where I was pointing and nodded, a little excited, I think, for the time alone. "Fin just told me, 'aw dun,' so that's good," he said as he passed her to me.

I was going to take the girls up to bed, but I saw the playroom strewn with toys, costumes and blankets. It seemed a perfect opportunity to wind down and accomplish something. "Let's go. Shoes off, in the cabinet. Then let's clean up the big room, ok girls?" They scampered off ahead of me and I smiled, proud of my little ringleted herd. "Avery, you're on trains. Put'em on the table. Briar, you pick up the costumes. Fin-diddle, you just get the babies, ok?"

They spread out across the room cleaning and playing in lazy loops like drunken bees. Finally the room was clean and the big girls headed to the door. Fin made one more pass to the far end of the room and disaster struck. I heard a clap and she crumpled, her hands moving lightning-fast to her face and then shrieks. Heartbreaking, ear piercing howls of pain and surprise. I ran to her as the girls stood rooted in place.

"What's wrong?" they murmured.

I scooped her in my arms and the blood came, huge spurts of blood. I couldn't tell where they were coming from as I cradled her in my arms, holding her face away from my body as I tried to gauge the severity. I was a hair's breadth from losing it as the blood came think and dark, spotting across my arm and soaking my chest.

The girls were spinning in circles until I barked, as much for myself as for them, "Stop it. Just move it, upstairs." I pressed wet paper towels against Fin's bottom lip as we moved upstairs. Once in the bathroom I began blotting with a cold wet towel, she was cut inside and out. After a minute the bleeding slowed down and I looked at her, "You want some milk, sweet girl?" She didn't give me her usual, "N'yeah!" instead just leaning into me.

I collapsed on a stool and nursed her while Avery rubbed my shoulder, her fingers tracing the dried blood, and Briar hummed and traced a hand along Fin's back. We stayed like that for quite some time, before I ushered the girls to their room so I could get Sean.

"Honey, I need your help." He looked at me, "Ok," and then I said, "I have Fin and she's bleeding, I need you to help me see how badly." He was calm and quick, guiding us under a light and checking her mouth. More blood than damage sent us upstairs to put her to bed. My guilt was thick as I explained that I hadn't taken the girls to bed. There was a look on his face, nothing he needed to say, or even would. We both know that you can do something 99 times, but there will be that one time that deviates do dramatically that you kick yourself.

We dressed the girls in their pjs, did the bedtime routine with an extra step of Motrin and Neosporin for Fin and kissed them goodnight. Fin turned gratefully to her bed and cuddled in to the corner. "You ok, mama?" he asked me. I nodded weakly.

Sean went downstairs and I went to change. I tiptoed down the hall. I peeled my shirt and bra off and grabbed a fresh tank top. I heard Finley begin to cry and headed into her.

"You ok? Mama's here," I shushed.

She wrapped her arms and legs around me and buried her face in my neck. I rocked side to side as she flipped her face from side to side. After a minute her head popped up and she looked at me. Her eyes scanned my face and then she leaned back. I said, "You ok?" and she sat up straight beaming at me and then leaned in and gave me a huge kiss. She leaned back, eyed my face again and made a contented trilling sound before kissing me again.

We swayed in the dark together, her hand pressing into my arms purposefully, "Don't leave yet."

Inside her arms I felt less guilt than I did peace. I hope she found more comfort than pain, my sweet little Fin.

"I'm not going anywhere, Fin."

Shhhhhhh

2009-06-01T22:24:00.004-04:00

"Is there a place to go?" I asked.

"Yup. The guy was really nice, said there was a little girls room upstairs." Sean said with his hand on the small of my back.

I stepped out of the car and said, "C'mon girls, let's go upstairs and go to the bathroom."

"Ok," they chirped in unison.

We tromped upstairs, stopping every step or two to reconfirm that we were going to the bathroom.

"That's right. We'll go right up to the bathroom and then hit the road again," I said ushering them up the carpeted stairs.

We walked single file down the hallways past a few doors.

"Mom, what's hit the road? Does it hurt?" Ave asked.

"No honey, it means go." I said.

"Hit means go?" she stopped.

"No, but go," I said chuckling. She snickered and scampered ahead. We got to the end of the hallway and then finally into the bathroom. Briar went first while Avery played with a squat farm sink at just her height. Briar launched herself off the toilet with a whisper-shout, "Your turn, Ave!" and nearly elbowing Briar off of the sink.

Avery sat and did her thing, cat one point shushing Briar. After she was done she went to the sink to wash her hands.

"Mom?" Ave asked in a stage whisper.

"Yes, sweetie."

"Mom, after I wash my hands can we see the little girl?" She asked hopefully.

"What little girl?" I asked.

"The little girl who lives here and uses that little sink. Can we see her?" She asked as I clumsily put together in my head that she was referring to the little girl of Sean's "little girls room," comment.

"No, we can't honey," I said as I dried her hands.

"Why, cause she's sleeping?" she asked looking up at me. Her eyes were so dark, so expectant that I lost myself in the moment of thinking of nothing but her face.

"Mom, it's ok. I'll hold Briar's hand and we'll walk without waking her up, ok?" She and Briar were already holding hands.

*******
It's these moments when I am able to occupy not just the space near her, but the trajectory of her thoughts, that I find myself being weak, and riding rather than steering. One day I'll need to explain, but not this day.

This day and the days ahead will embrace sleeping little girls, fairies in gardens and anything else that the three shades of blue in my daughters' eyes are able to see.

Whispers

2009-05-29T15:28:00.004-04:00

When I was a little girl I lived on Hickory Lane. There was a field near our house that I loved disappearing to. It was, to my young eyes, enormous, a wide expanse of promise filled brush. I would run out, far enough to feel deliciously free, but not so far that I couldn't get back home before whatever evil might be lurking in the shadows leapt out at me. I would spend hours fashioning homesteads, hunting magic creatures and hiding from passing cars.

Briar has found a field.

She just finished preschool, an event that drove home how fast she is growing and how despite her quest for independence, she is still a very, little girl. The last day of school was something I've not even tried to write about, the tears so forceful and the quake of her shoulders continuing well into the night. Her heartbreak took everyone by surprise and continues to laps at the edges of our days.

Reading a note from her teacher today, we were reduced to tears, "But why can't I see her anymore?" She asked.

"Honey, you can. You can visit," I explained, underlining the place on the card where her teacher had said as much.

"But why can't she be my teacher anymore?" Her eyes bore into me, reminding me of the first teacher I had, Miss. Thompson, a five year old girl's answer to a rock star.

"Well, once you start school, that's what happens. You have a new teacher each year." She looked at me, waiting to see if I meant it, when she saw that I wasn't going to say anymore her face crumpled.

"But I love her. I love her so much. She's. She's. She's my teacher," and the rest was muffled as she buried her face in my neck.

I swallowed hard and felt a flutter, this is just the first.

This fall she'll start kindergarten. She asks new questions each day,

"Will there be line leader jobs in kindergarten?"

"Will the teacher know my name?"

"D'ya think we'll learn the letters of the school?"

I answer as I can, occasionally choosing my responses in ways that I think will make her happier or prepare her for differences. The wound of not having communicated clearly enough that school was ending weighs on me.

The field I find her disappearing to is a place that suspends her between baby and child. I both understand and am exhausted by this place. She slips behind layers of fear and need, running to me, hiding behind my legs. I stroke and soothe, shush and encourage.

"Mama, carry me," she'll say in a whisper.

"Honey, I can't. I've got Fin," I'll say, or worse, "Honey, why are you asking me that? You are a big girl." I agonize over this, knowing that she'll never be smaller than she is today. She is a big girl, and yet she is my baby.

There are times as she traverses this field that she pushes me away. The first blush of embarrassment of me and for me. I hold her sinewy body in my arms and want her to stay, but she twitches, her neck craning literally and figuratively for something more. A pretty girl. A playground. A project, teacher, classmate or party.

I can feel her pulling away, but managing her own tether, something that keeps her tied to me, if only for a thin veil of protection from that which she is not quite sure of. I want to be here or there or wherever she needs me. I want to be ok as I hear the whispers of the girl ahead and as I hear the whispers of the girl who is here now, mama, will you cuddle with me?

I hope that I can understand the whispers between the rustles of school days and bedtime. I want to make sure she knows I am here, on the periphery of her field, always willing to pick her up or drop her off no matter how old she is.

I'm not beautiful

2009-05-27T22:02:00.002-04:00

Sean was working late and I had the girls in various stages of undress as we transitioned from reading to dancing. Ave was the first to get dressed, donning her pink ballerina costume with its bodice of dog-eared bows and quirky, stick-straight-up-instead-of-out-tutu. I was rushing to get Briar a fourth, fifth and six skirt to add to her faux hoop-skirtesque ensemble.

"Inowbooyflll," tickled at my ear.

"What?" I asked turning to see who and where it came from.

Ave was sitting with her knees tucked beneath her in the corner, her hair fell over her face as she looked up at me. "What did you say, sweets?" I asked.

"I'm not beautiful," she said, eyes sorrowful and piercing.

"You're what?" I said lowering myself to her level.

"I'm not beautiful," she said louder, clutching one bent knee in her arms as her chin rested on it.

"Excuse me? You aren't beautiful? I'm sorry, but you are the most beautiful middlest, Avery I have ever known." I said it with a playful, emphatic tone, but inside my chest felt as if it was pressing in on itself.

No, please no. Please don't let this be happening.

"No, I'm just not beautiful." Her eyes were free of tears, her mouth flirting with a smile, but the damage was done. She said something that shouldn't matter, shouldn't stop play and that simply wasn't true.

*****

I still have days when I put on a dress and I fear that my height or build will make someone question my femininity. It's ridiculous, but years of doubt and insecurities, genuine and posed, leave a mark. I am cautious not to say things in front of the girls, but they see beyond what we know. I am strong and proud, tall and sharp, but it is in my moments of slouching, my hesitations springing from doubt that call out to them.

She didn't say she wasn't smart, didn't say she wasn't strong, she chose beautiful. She wanted my attention, my concern. Have I done something to make her think that beauty is what I value most? Has someone else? Does it matter?

She is my strong, beautiful, hilarious, amazing Avery. Her hurt made me feel powerless and I fear it's but a fraction of what lies ahead. Now I have to try and find my way between "Yes, you are" and "You are so many things," making sure I get the balance right.

Photo Booth

2009-05-19T22:00:00.002-04:00

I have an addiction.

I won't be seeking treatment.

Mama, when I grow up...

2009-05-16T20:15:00.005-04:00

It's a little game we play, more of a way of life these days.

"Mama, when I grow up I want to have grown out bangs."

"Mama, when I grow up I wanna be a teacher."

The first was from Briar, the second from Avery. They are each progressing and questing at such a pace that their desires for the future change with each new experience. Last weekend we went to the wedding of a cousin. She was everything little girls would hope for in a bride; radiant, twinkly, delighted to kneel and talk to little girls, and resplendent in layers of beaded satin.

The ceremony was something that awed each of the girls, such pomp and circumstance with the bride's brothers in kilts, the bridesmaids in floor length blue gowns and the reception chock full of dancing, glass clinking and princes and princesses. The excitement of it all was reignited today after Ave's birthday party as Glens Falls High School students headed to prom poured out of a white stretch limo.

The girls ran down the street to watch the spectacle of boys with mohawks in tuxedos standing alongside girls in every type of ball gown imaginable, from a classic pink cotton candy layered tulle number to a blue leopard print cut-out number. I watched, my heart breaking a little as I imagined how soon I'd be standing on the other side of the sidewalk and envying the rock star-like allure the young dates had for the girls.

"Mama, what will I do in high school?" Briar asked as I tucked her in.

"Well, you'll take classes and learn about history and art, maybe play sports or act in plays." I mused aloud.

"And dances? Will I go to dances?" She asked hopefully.

"Of course you will. If you do well in school." I felt myself bristle at the joy dampering warning, but it didn't faze phase her.

"Mama, can you tell me where the princes are?" Briar asked at bedtime as I rocked Finley in my arms.

"The princes?" I asked a little surprised.

"Yes. I mean, where did Erin meet her prince?" She pressed.

"I think she met him at work, or maybe at school," I said.

"Well, how do you find your prince? Where does it happen?" she was sitting up, ready for the words that might light the way to where her prince was waiting.

"It's happens in different ways and in different places for everyone." I hedge sometimes, partly because I don't want the girls to think I place a huge amount of importance on whether or not they get married, partly because I don't want to set up some scenario that they may take as law.

"Mom?" This time it was Ave.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Mom, when I grow up I wanna be a wedding girl, ok?" She asked and declared in the way only a three year old can.

"Ok, you can be a wedding girl if that's what you want."

"And mom?" She was looking up at me, her dark blue eyes very serious and determined.

"Yes, honey?"

"Mom, I'm going to be a wedding girl," smiling and with a nod, "and I want dad to be my wedding guy."

********

Uh-bss, uh-bss, uh-bsst!

2009-05-10T10:12:00.005-04:00

Note pads gather dust, the camera sits more than it flashes and the dates on my blog entries grow further and further apart. I suppose the stereotypes about first, middle and last babies are true in some respects, but this morning as I swayed with Finley in my arms I felt a different truth.

I pressed my fingers into the dimples on her left elbow as she koala-beared on my chest, knees squeezing my sides, feet pushing against my back and fingers wrapped around my shoulders; a perfect embrace. She turned her face from one side to the other, burying her cheeks in my neck like a cool pillow in the middle of summer. Every so often she popped her head up and turned, checking her reflection in the mirror and kicking with delight.

Mama

She devours her time alone with me unapologetically and I can I see my own bliss reflected back in her eyes. This bond is different, it is not being painstakingly recorded or photographically captured in the same way that we did with Briar or with Avery. It is like a later love affair, after the capricious flings built on lust or convenience, beyond the step-by-step patterns of should-do's and ought-to's. It is the real thing.

This isn't to say that Briar and Avery weren't, these girls are the fruits of my greatest love. They are the results of the mistakes I made along the way. The wrong boys, the bad decisions, the heartache and the searching. They are the rewards for loving completely and without fear—the paradise I landed in after leaping.

Finley often pulls her head back, lifting her body off mine and craning back until her eyes are locked with mine. She waits, eyes wide and lips parted, before kicking her feet and exclaiming, "Uh bah mwaah!" and planting a massive, open mouth kiss on me. Her face launches into my neck again for a full body embrace and then she is back again.

She looks at me with great excitement and says, "Uh-bss, uh-bss, uh-bssah, uh-bssst!" I say it back and she nods and kicks with joyous satisfaction, affirmation. "Bssuh, bssuh, bssuh!" I lose myself in the shine of her lips as her tongue zips out to make the sounds. The pads of her fingers are the softest thing I've ever felt and I memorize the path they take as she pats my shoulders.

Avery and Briar circle as, pushing strollers, proffering baby dolls and jousting with Barbies. My life literally swirls around me from the moment I wake until my head finally touches the pillow at night. I find the rhythm of our days beginning to wear a perfectly smooth track along my core. It is challenging and exhausting, but the wake of this life, the rigors of caretaking and teaching, loving and disciplining are life-sustaining. The moment I begin to feel weary I see a new sparkle in the girls, a discovered ability or mastered skill and in each I can see myself, a legacy.

I don't know if the lapse in writing is allowing the girls to tell and me to live these most recent pages or if it is an unwillingness to pause for fear of missing something. Either way, despite knowing that I'll forget certain things, I am certain that this moment in time with Finley easily walking, Briar standing more often than not with her hands on her hips aching to be a big girl and Avery embodying all that is magic and impossible on the cusp of three, will travel with me until all that is left of me is my place in their hearts and memories as mom.

I will try to chronicle more so that they have it as I saw it to layer upon their own memories, but my first and most enduring promise is to live as fully within each moment with them as I can.

Briar.

Avery.

Finley.

Bri, Ave, Fin you are my exquisite everything.

Lullabye

2009-05-05T10:20:00.005-04:00

We were downstairs just after bedtime. I'd gone to take out my contacts and wash my face, meanwhile Avery had shuffled down the stairs and wiggled her way into Sean's arms. They looked equally complicit and content and so, as I heard Finley start to cry, I left them with a smile.

Closing the door softly behind me, I made my way upstairs, Finley's cries ratcheting up with each stride. Half way up the stairs I heard Briar begin to warble a tune of her own making:

Go to sleep, little Fin.
Go to sleep so nicely and sweet,
Little Fin, little Fin,
Sleep so you sleep,
Dream so you dream.

I stopped and listened. Her voice quivered a bit as she started each line, but then would grow stronger and more melodic as she moved to a higher note. I could hear her feet on the floor, imagined her dancing with a doll to entertain Fin. Briar is becoming more and more like me each day. Taking on responsibilities, stubbornly insisting that she do things on her own and care taking her sisters.

I find myself so torn by the way she tends to Finley without a second thought and the way in which Finley responds. She finds comfort in Briar, shades of what she does in me. I don't mean to put Briar in this position, don't want her to feel overburdened, yet I also don't want to deny her the gratification she must feel in having this ability.

I listened, waiting until I was sure Finley was asleep, and I called to Briar.

Briar? Briar.
Come here sweetie, come sit in mom's room.

She darted qucikly, her hands holding her nightgown down as if the fabric's swishing might wake Fin. I scooped her in my arms and carried her to my bed. We sat together, with her in arms, talking conspiratorially. I ran my fingers through her hair and listened as questions and new details of the school day bubbled from her perfect little lips.

When I'm a mommy will I drive to the hospital?
And when the baby is out of my belly will you still be my mom?
And then I was just pumping and knowing how to swing at school.
And then Daniel was talking to me about how he does his swinging.

I found myself overwhelmed by the absence of guilt as I just listened. These few stolen moments felt as momentous and precious as anything I can remember. We crawled under the covers and touched noses, enjoying the time. Sean and Avery cuddled below and Fin slept the kind of sleep that comes from sharing a room with sisters.

I'll remember this simple moment forever.

364

2009-04-29T14:29:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is Finley's first birthday. One year old, I mean really, it shouldn't sneak up on you. I hear it time and again, "She's a year? So soon? Whew, that went fast." I find solace in knowing that it hasn't just been me, as if others being shocked means that I didn't check out and miss it. Yet I am stunned, how could I have let the first year of my last baby go so fast. How?

She is it. Three and done. No trying for a boy, no maybe just one more. She is it. Fin.

fin- (Latin: end, last, limit, boundary, border).
ad finem; ad fin. To the end. Ad finem fidelis. Faithful to the end. Ad finem spero. I hope to the last. ad finem ultimum. To the final end.

A few months ago we moved her crib and the big girl beds into our old room, so insistent was Fin that she be allowed to sleep with her gang. She's asleep in her crib right now, the dark curls of her ponytail poking through the rails. Her body is turned toward her sisters. Sunlight is streaming in her window, the broad swath of sunlight filling her bed like a blanket. I don't say this for literary effect, I say this because it doesn't surprise me that even the sun wants to be near her. Finley is infectious. You don't look at Finley so much as you experience her.

I remember fighting through the thick haze of last-minute drugs as they laid her in my arms. She was perfect, exactly the sort of perfect that makes the "last baby" decision right and absolutely wrong. Her fingers pressed against me, her feet digging into my body. I was so fiercely glad to have her outside of me where I could see her and smell her, but another part of me wanted her back inside of me. Not to be shared. Not to be lost. Not to ever stop being my baby.

Now, here I am watching the clock as the minutes of the last day of her first year whiz by. I am older and more obligated- preschool, kindergarten, work, life- and yet for all my worries, I have rediscovered so much. I have allowed myself to be a mom with a baby.

Just this morning holding a cell phone to her ear with one hand, she nestled against my body, her face buried decadently in my skin as she nursed and traced familiar circles on my side. I had stopped getting ready, dropped what I was doing at the computer and just sat. Her eyes locked with mine, the circles she traced pulsed firm then soft as her lids drooped. I smiled and she sighed. One.

She is one and, in my heart, we will always be one. I am relearning the excruciating balance of laying claim and letting go. The paths her sister's carved upon me in the years before her, have become as much her own as theirs. My Finley, my last baby who has often times felt like my first for all the magic, wonder and hope that have sprung.

I worship your fearlessness and your joy. I adore your curls and treasure your snarls. You are what each of us hoped for, what we needed, but far more importantly you are exactly you.

Happy Birthday Finley.

.

The Call You Dread

2009-04-22T12:31:00.003-04:00

I've made no secret about how hard being a working mom can be. It is hard, the not fitting in with stay-at-home moms, not feeling completely comfortable with working-outside-the-home-moms, but there is one thing that helps.

A great sitter/nanny.

We have a wonderful person who I know loves our girls and is supremely capable. That said, I still get a tiny bit sick of the phone rings or I get an email from her.

"Ohomygod, what's wrong? Are they ok? Did someone get hurt? ShouldIcomehomerightnow?"

Seriously, full blown panic.

She called today.

"Amanda, it's Erin for you."

Shit.

"Hello?" I asked with serious trepidation.

"Amanda? I just had to call, I just went upstairs to check on the girls..."

Abject terror.

"I didn't see Ave."

Horror!

"And then I found her in the crib."

Crippling relief.

"She was asleep with her arm around Fin."

Mind-blowing awareness of my blessings and satisfaction in knowing that having a 3rd daughter was the right thing to do.

Erin, thank you for loving our girls.

Here's One Reason

2009-04-20T16:03:00.003-04:00

It might have been for the way he courted me in equal parts swagger, creativity and dogged persistence.

It could have been the way he held doors, listened and hung in there.

It didn't hurt that he looked past my vices, the massive chip on my shoulder and my insistence that it wouldn't work.

Or that I knew he would be a wonderful father.

But seriously, one of the defining "I knew it" moments was when I listened to a recording of him singing, while flying 3,000 miles away from him.

It's not the same song, but it's him, always him. Go have a listen.

Not Quite

2009-04-16T15:42:00.002-04:00

Avery was sitting on the toilet taking her sweet time as I kept her company. Fin was clinging to my legs and swatting at all manner of chokables. Dinner was simmering, sputtering and overflowing on the stove. Briar called from the other room:

"Mom, I'm thirsty. Can you please get me juice?"

I called back in a tense voice, "Not now Briar, I am trying to do five things and I CANNOT handle anything else."

She didn't answer back. I exhaled as Avery laughed.

"No, silly, mama. You aren't doing five things, you're only doin' two."

And cue slumping shoulders and wry smile.

How many things are you doing?

Celestial Snapshots

2009-04-07T00:00:00.005-04:00

They surround me, wisps of gown tickling at my feet, tendrils of chestnut hair kissing my neck and the rhythms of their sleep lapping at my soul. Each morning brings another nuance, turns of phrase slipping away and bright, shiny new ways of declaring my obsolescence emerge. We move as one, a tangle of mom and girl, baby and child, needy and capable.

"You sure have your hands full," people chuckle, heads shaking as they watch me, arms straining and breath slightly labored. I smile and nod, but inside I know that the shortness of breath and sinewy arms aren't exhaustion, it's the holding on. Gasping for breath as I watch time speeding by, my arms working at superhuman levels to hold it back. Beating away the ticking in order to catch one more throaty exclaim of

Look at the up lines on the mountain hill.
Or Mama, you show me one more elephant butterfly hug 'fore you tuck me night night?.

They are only today my babies, tomorrow becoming one step closer to the women I'll admire. I greedily clutch these photos to my breast and breathe a ragged breath as I try to smile, and say in a steady voice, Yes, honey, I do see. You are very big."

I'd never want that*

2009-03-30T23:13:00.005-04:00

Finley continues to walk. She is almost running, luckily she circles back.
Briar and I went to her kindergarten screening today. She is a whiz, a charming, radiant whiz.
Avery is exploding. Language. Athletic prowess. Beauty. Staggering.

This morning, sitting at the office in a production meeting, I found myself looking around the table at the staff. A newly engaged 20-something, a 30-something mom to 2 under 2, a 40-something dad of two in elementary school, our partners, each a few years ahead of us in age and on the parenting ladder. It was all I could do not to cry. Blonde hair, red hair, olive skin, long lashes, tall, short, slight, athletic— all of us so very different, yet as I watched each set of lips move as people shared ideas, I felt a nearly immovable lump in my throat.

Babies every one. These adults I share an office with every day are someone's child. The first baby, or maybe the last. The only girl, the coveted boy. They had first days, first loves and first homes. Sitting before me, a reflection of what is to come. I cannot wrap my mind around how it can be that one day our girls will be gone, spinning on an axis that does not include me.

Listening and watching as I choked back a sob I couldn't have explained, I heard things that made me swoon. These sons and daughters are brilliant. Kind, intelligent, capable. Products of someone and yet wholly their own.

I am so proud and so very terrified, hoping that in this predestined game of chicken I can somehow make it to the end prepared for what is to be. My girls conquering.

* I began this post to share that Fin, despite edging ever closer to being a big girl, has returned to a sweet routine of nursing. If I didn't know better I'd think she was helping me, a gentle crutch to prop me up until I'm strong enough to hold myself as she flits away. I'd never want her to worry about me in that way, but it is so very tempting to slip into this, luxuriating in the glow of this time.

Confidential to Crystal: Was thinking of adding a Mama Sap of Terror type tag. xxoo

She'll be coming 'round*

2009-03-27T14:02:00.003-04:00

Three daughters in four years.

It wasn't easy, but we decided we were done. I don't think about it often, but every once in a while I do.

My period came. It will always come now.

She is nursing, but she is nursing less. When she is done, I will be too.

She is walking. My last baby is walking.

There is celebration and joy within these milestones, but as I have learned in these four years, with every soaring trip my heart makes as the girls triumph, a part of me becomes irreparably broken.

I want to stomp my feet and stop time, but there are kindergarten matriculation papers that make me giddy. First days of school and new experiences.

There is Avery's any-day-now first time going to be without diapers. Her excitement is contagious.

Just around the corner are first trips down the slide, learning to jump and skipping.

I am frozen in wanting and not wanting.

I am awed by how euphoric sorrow can be. I am consumed by the wonder of lives ending and beginning, overlapping and contradicting. I am, despite my fear, open to it all and ever so grateful to be in the middle of this delicious conflict.

*The title started as a reference to Fin, but by post's end, I think the she actually became about me. Baby steps, right?

Just Us

2009-03-21T10:52:00.003-04:00

The other day I declared that after work there would be no news or Facebook until bedtime. We were going to focus on the girls without the interruptions of work, chatting or anything else not strictly playing-together-on-the-floor related.

We closed the door and sat in the late afternoon sun that poured through the picture windows. The floor was a tapestry of magnetic doll arrangements, blocks, stuffed animals and books. Fin was standing at the play kitchen chucking plastic pots this way and that. Briar was sprawled on the couch with a V-tech laptop matching letters as she cradled a fiercely swaddled baby Snow White doll in her left arm. Ave was blinking with energy- her curls flipping back and forth as she repeatedly took stock of the room.

Mom?
Yup.

Dad?
Right d'ere.

Fin?
Cookin'!

Bri?
On'a 'puter.

Jerking back and forth, occasionally climbing on Sean, she seemed confused by how best to enjoy this slice of undiluted family time.

"Hey, Ave? Why don't you go get a puzzle? We can all do a puzzle together," I said.

"A puzzle? All of us? Sure, I can do it!" And she ran from the room calling out every third step, "Everybody don't move. I'll get a puzzle and bring it. Don't move!"

Sean and I laughed and waited for the thunderous roar as she rounded the corner from the carpeted living room to the kitchen's hardwood floors.

"Just wait a minute. I'm coming everybody!" When she came in the room, a small Disney puzzle tucked under her right arm like a football, she had the look of victory upon her face. Eyes dancing, mouth wide open in a smile and dimpled fingers thrusting the puzzle overhead like a trophy, "I got it, now let's do it."

I was shocked she'd picked princesses over the alphabet, map and barn puzzles. "Jasmine?" I asked. "Yup," she nodded her head and began prying open the box. We made quick work of setting the pieces out and arranging them face up in a rough circle. Briar slipped off the couch and joined us, with Fin fast behind her. What followed was a cross between puzzle making and sword fighting as we tried to keep Fin from eating the pieces, while refereeing the increasingly competitive older sisters.

After playing we made dinner and sat down to eat together. Each girl was on her best behavior, a reward for us having spent the time with them, no doubt. We followed up dinner with a giggle packed wrestling/dancing session and then headed up to bed. Since moving the girls into the same room, bedtime has become an event. Family toothbrushing, group pj selection, stories with turns on dad's back, kisses and lotion, cuddles from mom, special toys for Fin. It doesn't take any longer, but the intensity of their excitement and desire to be at the center can be volatile. On this night it was smooth.

Later, the girls all sleeping, Sean and I cuddled up on the couch. We floated between conversation and silence, a gentle, easy rhythm, the exertion of the workday and family play forgotten. My feet were up on the table when something caught my eye, an empty space. The shelf beneath the table holds two leather bins, the were gone. Looking further I was they were pulled out and on the floor just beyond the table. Odd.

Her eyes sparkled, and something passed across her face, a flash of emotion so bare it startled me. It was reverence and gratitude.

One of the bins had books, the other games and puzzles. The games were poking out, the two largest puzzles jammed together, stuck.

"Everybody don't move!"

I curled my knees and looked through the table, the bins are easily a foot tall and 2 feet long, far too large to be manageable for a toddler.

The small box was tucked under her arm.

My eyes burned as I realized the story behind the bins. Ave, willfull, stubborn and soberingly independent, had done this. I pictured her barely controlled sprint into the room, the pulling and twisting to get the bins out. The red Melissa & Doug boxes so firmly wedged, too tight for dimpled fingers. She hadn't come for help, hadn't said a word, so focused to be able to connect us in an activity.

"I got it!"

I imagined that after a moment of frustration she'd actually decided that Jasmine would make Briar happier, that the lighter pieces would be easier for Finley, that moving faster would keep her from losing our attention. The empty space let by the bins had faint lines of dusty, not so much as to suggest the puzzles are never played with, but enough to make the lump in my throat choke me. My Ave.

I buried my face in Sean's chest with a cry and murmured into his shirt, "Thank you. Thank you." He held me and nodded as I pointed to the empty space. I know we'll never be perfect, but I hope that we can keep the lines of dust faint.

Tiny Dancer

2009-03-15T22:57:00.002-04:00

I'd bought the tutu months before, long pink sleeves, layer upon layer of tulle with a bodice of tiny pink bows. When Briar saw the new pink tutu she nearly wept from the beauty of it.

"Honey, it's for Ave," I said gently.

"But mama, I love it. Did you get me a pink one?" She asked hopefully.

"No, sweetie. You have a pink tutu that fits you and a lot of other dress up things. Ave needed a new dancing outfit."

We went round and round, until Briar's face, drawn with longing finally, turned from the tutu. "Let's go dress up Ave, I can't wait to see you in it." Ave jumped up, "Ok, Bri, yet's go!" I smiled as they scampered off in a wave of pink excitement. Briar would end up waiting after all.

We were making dinner when I heard Briar scream. "Moooooooooooom! Mom! Mom! She's wearing it! Avery is wearing her pink ballerina thing that I have been wanting to see her in for this so many days." She sprinted toward us and then spun around abruptly to watch as Ave made her grand entrance.

Her hair was down, long dark curls bouncing on her shoulders, one tendril caught beneath the shoulder of her leotard. Her socks were pink, the toes a bit stretched out and the tops slouching at the bottom of her solid little legs. A bit of underwear poked out of the edge as she grinned at us and began to turn in circles.

"Oh, Ave! You look amazing," I said.

"So pretty, Ave," Sean oohed.

She looked at us very seriously and instructed, "Watch guys, watch, d'is is how ballerinas dance." She held her arms out at her side and tucked her fingers in toward her wrists as if she were trying to hold a ball in each hand without using her thumbs or bending her fingers.

We watched as she turned in circles, those hands never untucking and the tendril never slipping from its spot beneath the pale pink fabric. I felt the burn, that sharp sting in the nose just before the tears start. She kept turning, up down, up down, pressing on her toes. Fin watched too, her feet kicking with glee each time Ave's face turned toward us.

The tears were welling, threatening to unfurl in a way that would be impossible to hide. She stopped dancing and looked at us, her thick bangs clinging to her eyelashes as she waited. "I'm done dancing, now ya gotta clap." As we began to clap and call at "Bravo!" She bent at the waist to bow, with her hands still held in their awkward position, she threw her arms behind her back. After a moment she began dancing again, the hint of one cheek peeking out from behind the back of her tutu.

Her legs looked so tiny, large shadows of the legs we held in the delivery room. She began to move in wider circles and her form blurred, almost three today and yet somehow almost gone. A piercing, pirouetting dream. Her face grew serious as she began to spin faster, a mix of athleticism and toddler softness drew a choke. The startled intake of air as the tears refuse to be held back.

I felt the wrack of each sob as Ave danced and danced, the light coming through the window deepening as the sun passed over the mountain. I knew I would never forget the bittersweet perfection of watching Avery dance her way into forever through the wet tracks of tears on Sean's face.

Melting

2009-03-11T21:14:00.000-04:00

Sean had the car this morning and his day was stacked like a Dr. Seuss illustration— deadlines upon deadlines, projects intersecting projects.

"Want me to pick Briar up with the stroller? I asked. It was the right thing to do, but in all honesty I had no desire. I knew I'd be going unshowered in less than ideal weather conditions. Not going would almost certainly mean another night with him gone and both of us frazzled to nubbins. I cringed as I waited.

"Sure, that's great," he said not giving it second thought. I spent no time ruing having made the offer or resenting his decision. I spent a lot of time earlier in my life being upset about things, stewing. I have a better understanding now of when to let go, when to move on and focus on what is relevant or within my control.

He left for work and as I waved I felt Ave and FIn behind me, one look and I knew a nap was unlikely. We slogged through and eventually they fell asleep. To be precise they fell asleep at 10:40, Briar's pick up is 11:20, less than ideal. I worked until 5 after 11 and then roused the girls, freshened clothes and set them in the stroller.

We ran to Briar's school. My feet sloshed through the snow and slush as Avery called out, "Ya gotta not get me wet, mama. I'm going to Briar's classroom and I gotta not be wet." As the burning in my lungs grew, so did the smile on my face. Finley began to chirp, contented and excited yelps to which Ave offered a running commentary, "Fin's'a talking. She's so silly and happy going to Briar's school!"

Turning the last corner, the slate topped steeple piercing a billowy cloud beneath the almost-blue sky, tears sprang from the corners of my eyes. Weeks of frustration slipped away, as forgotten as the road behind me. My legs pumped and my arms flexed as I steered the wide stroller through the treacherous terrain. Cars whizzed past and the girls called out hellos.

I was almost late, sweaty and unshowered, but as the front wheel careened over the lip of pavement between street and parking lot, I felt accomplished. Three daughters, a husband, a life and a sprint. A sprint to school, a sprint to playing before school, to eating before leaving, to loving after hours, and to managing it all. I don't always hit it just right- Briar hits school with her hair barely brushed, Ave sometimes stays in pjs till noon and Fin plays with toilet paper, but today I did.

Today I ran for all I was worth, but the running and everything followed ended up being a beautiful thing, a testament to willingness. I am so grateful that I can stop to listen, jump to action and embrace the moment.

We walked home with cars whizzing by, classmates calling out, "Lucky!" and moms watching with unmasked envy, but most importantly, the four of us together and living inside the moment.

Every Little Bit

2009-03-04T09:06:00.002-05:00

I don't send those annoying chain-letteresque emails or participate in the forwards that carry subject lines like:
Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: REad THIS ITS Histerically hylarious, REALLY!!!!! Nor do I tag people for those monotonous lists on Facebook. I am much more likely to send an email that has a few quick lines about being bad about staying in touch yadda yadda yadda.

Pardon me as I jump around here, the other night I was doing some research for a meeting with a client in the health care industry. I was in the midst of some search or another on Twitter and I found someone locally discussing a cancer diagnosis, Hepatoblastoma to be precise. I followed the link and to my horror found that it was a little girl.

Charlotte.

Charlotte is not yet two, but to read about her on the blog her parents have, a universal parenting truth is evident. Two years is nothing, days within a lifetime really, and yet, in those first years our lives are changed so profoundly, that we live a lifetime in each day. We watch breathlessly as personalities unfold, as each dawn brings a new shimmer to a smile. Their hair grows, their teeth march proudly into their smiles, goofy one minute, breathtaking the next. They make new sounds, respond to us differently and then one day they plant that first deliberate kiss on you and you feel as if you might burst from the perfection of it.

Our nights, once carefree and with limitless possibilities, become sprints to meals and bath time, stories and cuddles. We wonder where the time goes even as we shake our heads at the thought that we had ever experienced joy before being parents. We live our children, dedicated to them, rooted in them and, for some, defined by them.

To say that reading about a diagnosis like this knocks the wind out of me doesn't begin to describe it. I wrote to Charlotte's dad that night and asked if I could try to help. I asked for permission to link to their site in the hope of sending people their way. I don't know what you can do to help from where you are, but I'd imagine that visiting their site and reading Charlotte's story, maybe even leaving a comment would be worth something.

This sweet family is facing the battle of a lifetime and the thought of them doing it alone tortures me. Please go and help create a circle around them. Every little bit adds up to something very big.

A scheduled appraisal

2009-03-02T16:31:00.008-05:00

We had an appraisal today. We spent the weekend preparing; scrubbing this, fixing that and reorganizing everything else. It was exhausting maintaining a prolonged scrutiny of every corner of our house.

"Do you think this is too ratty?"

"Want me to trash this?"

"Maybe we should paint that?"

"Does this look weird?"

"Think it's better this way?"

I began to crackle, my nerves were fried and the distance to finished seemed just beyond reach. Sunday was the final sprint and I couldn't rest. I snapped at Sean and he retreated upstairs, a confused Fin, snug in his arms, craned her neck to watch me as he closed the door. I scrubbed and scoured until my arms shook from exertion and my legs trembled. After polishing the bench next to the window I finally sat.

The house was still. I looked back at all I had done- freshly vacuumed floors, squeaky-clean windows, and tidily organized bins of toys. Three bins, actually.

Briar.
Avery.
Finley.

The mantle to my right held three frames. A picture of Ave, her face turned toward the camera, dark eyebrows against creamy cheeks and her little mouth over her sharp chin. I remembered the feel of her in my arms, strong even in those first hours. Her dark hair such an unexpected delight to us all. Then Fin, the frame was smaller, but her face shone front and center. Her lips parted, eyes expectant, "Are you coming?" it seemed to ask. Closest to me was Briar. This picture was in color, not black and white like the other two. She is in profile, flanked by dark stalks of grass on the top of Buck Mountain, Lake George as her backdrop. She is on the farthest edge of the frame, reminding me of the motion of that first year.

We'd just bought our house when we became pregnant. We worked tirelessly, preparing the house for our new life. She arrived the next fall, then came another year. First kisses, and the unforgettable advent of her first laugh as we lay in our bed on Christmas Eve feeling disappointed at the threadbare holiday, barely two nickels to rub together. That laugh, how it lifted us.

It was the day that we took her photo on Buck that I told Sean we would have another baby, that I was pregnant with Ave. Fearless, capable, and impervious to Briar's initial reticence. You'll love me. I know it. And she did. I touched the bench beneath me, the stage for many afternoon shenanigans. Two sisters, growing together, this way and that, like plants wending gently toward sunlight.

Fin made a sound upstairs and I felt myself shaking. It was the oddest thing feeling laughter come over me. I gave into it as I realized that no matter what the appraisers said to me, the only appraisal that really mattered was staring at me from our mantle. Three beautiful girls upon the mantle my husband had built while our first daughter grew in my belly.

My priceless life.

I have to write that down

2009-02-24T22:38:00.011-05:00

I remember rolling my eyes at the, "Remember to write it all down" warnings I got from everyone from the clerk at Lowe's to relatives-by-marriage. I now understand that it's true and even though I know that to my core, I also know that no one will ever listen to me say it. There will be eye rolling and insult, but never the, "You know, she's probably right." I wish I'd listened, knowing that I've let memories slip through the cracks, I'm sure I'll find them again, unprompted, but it isn't the same.

We're just back from a whirlwind trip to Seattle and Yakima. A truly incredible visit seeing all the family we wanted and having the girls respond perfectly to everyone! I don't want the memories to slip away, don't want to forget the hilarity of Avery saying sternly to Grandma, "Grandma, this isn't a circus!"

I want to be able to conjure the breathy wonder of Briar as she gaped at the spectacle out of our window the first night in the hotel:

"I don't know what that is, but I think it's magic!"

I want to remember how it felt to sit with my sister, just like before, sprawled beside the fire, only this time having my baby with us. The feeling of having given my girls sisters, next-generation Abbies.

To have the girls and Grandma together.

To revisit a track almost 20 years since competing and lining up with my family, a baby strapped to my chest, my husband and sister beside me, Steve playing along, Maddie nosing in, Avery hamming it up and my sweet Briar taking it so seriously.

Or the girls stealing the spotlight and sharing a cherished part of my past.

Watching with delight as Avery tried golfing. On an unexpected slope.

Laughing hysterically as loving shots with Grandpa sparked similarities to hostage shots...remember that time we met up at Starbucks and gathered against that concrete wall? And the spots that looked like bullet holes?

Then finding the sweet light with Grandma. And the food!

The narcotic effect of papa.

Then again, maybe it was something in the water.

I didn't write down every sweet thing the girls said or manage to capture every moment on film, but I did catch some. I'm hoping that what I did chronicle will bleed every so often into the other memories, the moments we shared off camera— the magic of dreams coming true.

Grace is no small thing

2009-02-21T07:28:00.000-05:00

A while back I wrote a post that prompted someone to write to me about a site called Grace in Small Things. She said that based on my post, it might be something I'd like to be a part of— a place where the focus stays on the things we can be grateful for, the beauty in a moment, the gratitude at the end of even the hardest day. Of course, in keeping with the frenetic pace of life and the scurrying to get on to the next thing with little thought of what gets caught in the wake, I forgot. I signed up, but didn't post. Then something happened, some sort of reminder.

I just left a little morsel, a sliver of something that gave me a sense of being blessed. It took 10 minutes and it felt incredible. I wish you'd go over and read it, then if you feel so inclined, maybe you could join us. Couldn't you use a little bit of calm in your life, a chorus of gratitude?

Pitch and Sway

2009-02-20T17:07:00.000-05:00

It depends on the moment, but lately there is very little still. We live in cycles of motion, pitching and listing, then swaying and lolling. I cannot say that I prefer one over the other, but I am clearly dazed, unable to really root myself in anything but the anticipation of the next propulsion.

Briar huffing, bossing Avery.
Briar writing, asking, surging ahead.

Avery pouting, lamenting that she is not in school.
Avery gasping for breath between body wracking guffaws, Avery exclaiming, "By. My. Self!"

Finley scaling stairs. Finley exploring outlets.
Finley finding itty bitty bits of plastic. Finley doing and doing.

I watched the numbers on the calender whiz past.

I haven't written.

It ricocheted off the hampers of clothes waiting to be folded.

My blogs are gathering dust.

It clanged against the dishes in the sink.

I am ashamed by the longing for a moment.

It stared back at me in the mirror as I tried to slip contacts over my bloodshot eyes.

I've been dipping my toe back in, back to primping, back to smiling and back here. My writing. My passion.

It is here where I find my footing. Jess called it the season of motherhood. I love that, I really do. And so even as it feels like a marathon that I am sprinting (Thanks for that, Janet) I am slowing to a walk, ambling even, to dash notes here.

My girls, my days, my everything, tucked safely in these words I find as I listen to the rhythm of naptime breathing or the ringing and clattering of doll house playing. My time, now and forever.

Capturing a bit of magic for a rainy day.

Special thanks to my mom for the pictures, all taken during our wondrous visit.

Traveling Hearts

2009-02-17T11:00:00.003-05:00

We've been away.
Galloping, carving grooves in time.
Memories in peals of laughter and wobbly steps.
Sisters, young and old, together.
Heading home, leaving bittersweet wisps.
Parts of our spirits unwilling to leave this time.

Never again, and yet, always

Just the other night

2009-01-31T09:02:00.006-05:00

Back to mix-tapes and day dreams; Garth Brooks.

Just the other night at a hometown football game
My wife and I ran into my old high school flame
And as I introduced them the past came back to me
And I couldn't help but think of the way things used to be

Sean had gone to bed and I was dinking around on Facebook. An old friend, one of those people who for a short time blurred the lines between friend and something else, popped up in the chat window. I immediately smiled, remembering the cadence of his speech, the inimitable way he embodied the sort of slacker-stoner dude of the 90's. We began chatting, joking about babies and parenting, the long road from free-wheeling theatre majors to now: contented, married parents.

He was not a boyfriend, or someone that I had unrequited feelings for, just one of those brief blips of neon in a life far better suited to jewel and earth tones. I looked around as I waited for the next ping of conversation, the floor was strewn with pinks and purples, walls and shelves lined with cherished tomes, mementoes and photographs. It felt odd to suddenly have this gateway, almost a wrinkle in time, connecting parts of my life that I never consider together.

We live near the area where Sean grew up. It's strange sometimes, this experience of being perched along a history I do not belong to. There have been brushes with things that don't threaten me, but feel a bit like rubbing against the grain. Knowing shades of something, an ex-this or that, a quick cocked eyebrow from a friend, a sort of, "Is this something we don't mention?" Nothing sinister or untoward, just natural, if awkward, attempts to buffer the present and past.

I often think how glad I am not to be living where I went to school. I don't have any great shame, but somehow coming here forgave certain missteps or even allowed me the courage to growt. I am, as always, Amanda, but the there was never a time, not in middle school, high school, or college, when I truly found solid footing. I don't have life-long friends, no one that I ever stayed connected to. I sometimes envy people who have that, conducting the odd search for names of people I grew up with, people who might have become that had things gone another way.

Here I have my daughters, my husband, the wisps of my mom's east coast upbringing curling around my life. There is a hint of bygone pride, of striking out and laying claim to a place, building a home and a life. The furnace is humming, it was the first major purchase after our house, barely 2 months after in fact. We used to joke about it, "Hey, wanna see our furnace?" we'd ask guests. The expense was so great for a thing so, well, unimpressive. "How about we add racing stripes to it?" Sean asked late one night as we sipped beers through our plaster-caked lips, sitting on the floor amid strips of ancient, gold shag carpet we'd yanked up. I sighed, phantom aches tickled my shoulders remembering the work.

"Mott," flashed on the screen, my maiden name. "You look really, really happy in all your pictures. But, Mott. That's what I thought when I saw your picture, but that's not you. Weird. You are you now."

I smiled. Before meeting Sean I'd not given a lot of thought to name changing. I hadn't imagined taking someone else's name or being conflicted about losing myself in doing so.

"Wild, right? To love someone so much that you change your name. I'm lucky," I typed.

Letters flashed on the screen, "My wife is brilliant. She grounds me." I'm pretty sure we both grinned at that.

We chatted for a while longer before saying good night. I closed the computer and blew out the candle on the mantle, a just because gift from Sean. I don't imagine we'll chat again. I enjoyed it and found myself thinking back to Ellensburg, the smells of the town, the rhythm of my life back then, but that was it. A bit like a moth weaving and wending, fast then slow, in pursuit of the light. A quick bump against the window, then again, before pausing and making a straight shot for an amber glow. To Sean, my light.

And then and there I thanked the good Lord
For the gifts in my life.

This, time.

2009-01-27T13:37:00.008-05:00

Morose might be a good way of describing my take on time these days, but I am working my way back. Two nights without sleep, the first on account of teeth and the second a stomach bug, doesn't really help, but iPhoto does. Proof of a valiant battle against time lives there, with golden portraits of life lived unfettered by grains of sand or the growing march of crow's feet framing the eyes snapping each shot.

Our girls spin in a blur of ringlets and tumbles, their squeals taking root in our souls as their feet leave welts on the drywall. It can be dizzying, but as I pause to reflect I see the outline of the curves, the full panorama of this life that I am blessed to be at the center of each day.

We're home nursing a bug that started with middle of the night upchuck and has magnificently transformed to dirty diapers that remind me of the bathroom shacks at camp sights—I can be lyrical, but make no mistake, this sh*t stinks. Luckily the makers are cute.

>

Wishing you sun drenched windows and side splitting laughter.

How do you know you are living in each angle of now?

Mommy?

2009-01-20T10:46:00.003-05:00

Trying to take a nap in her room while I worked quietly on my laptop—

Avery: "Mommy?"

Me: "Yes, baby girl?"

Avery: "I just peed in my diaper."

Me: "What?"

Avery: "I just peed in my diaper. A lot. I peed a lot in my diaper."

Me: "You did? You peed, just now?"

Avery: "Yup, it was a lot in my diaper."

Me: "Honey, you don't have a diaper on."

Sigh.

Rituals

2009-01-11T10:09:00.003-05:00

Before becoming a mom I thought I knew what it was I would most cherish doing— sprinkling Santa lore, fostering boundless imagination and energy and trips to the park. The reality I discovered was that I voluntarily took a back seat to the Santa stuff. I had never considered the second person, my partner, as I imagined parenting. Sean has been magnificent in what he has assumed, telling the girls with great fanfare and reverence about the work of Santa; from what the reindeer need to eat, to the distance that Santa must travel. I've perched in shadowed corners to listen, smiling softly knowing that I probably would've stopped at red velvet with black piping.

Sean has handled the lion's share of bedtime duties since Avery arrived. I remember putting Briar to bed, reading to her as she sat precariously on my lap, the nearly 10 pounds of Ave leaving scant real estate upon which to perch. Tears slid silently down my face as I read to her, wondering all the while if Ave's arrival would forever change out life. It did, but as I've learned, nothing is as I imagined.

My favorite ritual, one that began with Bri and has returned with Ave, happens after bedtime. I still give bedtime cuddles and kisses, retrieve stuffed animals and find specific pajamas, but it's this tiny thing after bed that lives in a halo of wonder and significance for me. Ave is potty training, for the most part she is out of a diaper, but the nights still present a challenge. Each night before I go to bed I tip toe into their room, gather Ave in my arms and whisper, "Mama's here. Wanna go in the bathroom and pee for me?"

She purses her lips, sighs and then wraps her arms around me. I walk down the hallway whispering in her ear, "At's my girl," and "I love you so much, big girl." I set her on the seat in the bathroom and she leans forward, arms clasped around my legs with one hand tracing the surface of my skin. "Pee for me?" Her little body tenses and then relaxes, she murmurs a yes and then does.

She rubs her face against my legs, "M'all done, mama." We finish up and I flip the light. Walking down the hall, cradling her head on my shoulder, I shiver. I lower her into bed, sometimes she asks me to cuddle, other times she slips immediately to sleep. The room shimmers a silvery blue from the moonlight off the snow, the whir of the humidifier is the only sound as I sit. Still as can be, I imagine a third bed, a space between Briar and Avery, just down the hall from Fin, for me.

I ache that I will not always be, that for every moment as mama, tending to my girls, there will be time that I miss. Time when I am gone. Not a sister, their mom. Avery turns, her fingers stretch, I pass her furry blue animal into her hand and she tucks him into her body. Like so much of what we do as parents, she barely registers me or this ritual, trusting that it will come each night. Her curls spread out around her and for a moment, cloaked in the silence, it is as if I belong.

Stripped Bare

2009-01-02T10:45:00.002-05:00

Last winter I had someone send me an email. I won't post it in its entirety, but it went a little something like this:

"Thank god you finally complained. I have often considered not reading your blog anymore, you just don't seem real the way you write. The post you wrote the other day let me see that you aren't so perfect."

After I got that email I struggled, what was safe to write? Was I really being disingenuous? I didn't think so, but I was uncharacteristically impacted, rocked to my core really, to think that this space that I use to chronicle my life with with my girls would be questioned. It is my gateway to these years that are already becoming a blur, but these lines from a virtual stranger made me question everything. I took to the keyboard time and again, I tried to write, but the "real" that the person seemed to want felt false, but the words that came naturally trembled, vulnerable to the doubt that weighed me down. I leaned on a few special people, that I trust to give it to me straight.

Eventually I shook it off, but there have been other factors that have lapped at the edges of this space; I've not been plagued with trolls, but there are readers that come for reasons that bother me, making me feel I have to choose my words carefully.

Can I say that? Will she interpret that wrong?

In all honesty she, and others like her, are not worth the time I've just given them, but just the same, they have touched this place. Our place. Which leads me to the purpose of this post. I am going to reclaim my voice. 2009 will not be filled with superficial or unattainable goals, instead I am going to keep doing everything I have been doing, but give myself license to do everything in new ways.

I am going to write when I want and how I want. I may write a story about how Avery gleefully names her poop and bids it a boisterous farewell each time she goes to the bathroom. This may only ever make one person laugh, but that's ok. I will write 800 words about a middle of the night nursing because it moves me. I'll write about getting hurt or some little thing that makes me smile.

See, what I am beginning to figure out is our life is really what we make of it. It's the way we choose to walk each day, the people we choose to share the journey with and the words and light we use to preserve the memories. My gift to myself and to my family will be to strip away all the things that have taken me from the path I am meant to walk. I am exactly who you find here and more. I am reverent about being a mom, I love nursing babies and massaging shampoo into long curls. I get tired and frustrated like everyone else, but the way I choose to narrate my life is heavy on the blessings, shining the light strongest on the love, joy and wonder.

Sitting here smiling, I know that the sounds coming from upstairs could be described as caterwauling, but if I creep up the stairs there will actually be a magnificent orchestration of princess and stuffed animal bantering, a room some might think of as being in disarray will actually be the stage for battles, wedding and theatre watching. There is just so much magic to see and be a part of, my 2009 and every year after is going to be devoted to living within it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a castle to build and some princesses to kiss.

Bitten

2008-12-23T18:18:00.004-05:00

I haven't been posting pictures since my camera bit the dust, but rest assured that if I did, and if they were photos of me, what you would see would be a deliriously infatuated me, mooning over my girls. After a winter into spring that saw me finding the job of my dreams (twice), then a spring into summer that had me delivering Fin and working on my book, and then a summer into fall that led to a heartbreak involving losing a job and peaking with a recent forsaking of our sitter, it would seem that Christmas has brought me a renewed wonder and profound appreciation for my place in the world.

The girls are my universe; spinning, twinkling and coloring my every moment as they circle me. Briar and I are paired in the excruciating dance of mother and daughter, her will challenging me and threatening my ability to pause before reacting. We travel through each day flitting from play to duel. and then we twirl and I am once again in awe of her; my first baby. We laugh and begin anew.

Avery has my number through and through, slipping into bed with me before dawn. Her little legs curl into mine and her still-thank-you-god-pudgy-hands traces lines on my arms, I wub you, mama. Her soft side sleeps during the day, our conversations punctuated emphatically with, "You can stay dere, I can do it By. My. Own." And so I stay, cramming my hands in my pockets to keep from digging my hands into her long curls, to not take her in my arms and squeeze her until she squeals.

And then, as I always say, there is my Fin. She is my first kiss and luckiest moment wrapped in a bundle of dark haired, blue eyed magnificence. Each blink is like a firework, making my breath catch and my heart skip. Her smiles enchant me and each night as she drifts off to sleep the look of calm contentment on her face fills me with nothing short of bliss.

I am so grateful for these sporadic moments of all-consuming glee to be who I am, where I am and, most proudly how I am. They come to me and remind me to count my blessings* and love my life; from the people in it, to the magic in my days. On this snowy morning I am saying thank you and wishing you the same kind of joy in being.

*If you haven't already, I would be incredibly grateful if you visited The Wink to leave a comment for our Uncle Dennis, who is still waging a valiant fight toward healing after being run over by a truck on Friday night.

Believe*

2008-12-15T13:09:00.004-05:00

If ever there were a season during which to believe, it has to be the one that brings icicles, snowflakes, bright and silent nights and snowmen. And kids' hats.

*Believe me when I tell you that she took that stick and stuck it where it made the "m" in snowman a capital "M."

Snap

2008-12-14T08:23:00.000-05:00

Winter has arrived, with the weariness and tension of last week being replaced by wonder and excitement. Each window frames a snow so white and trees so dramnatically laden with snow and ice, it is as if we are experiencing it all for the first time. Yesterday was a crystally blur of snowman-making and snowflake spying. No cameras, no phones, just mittens and sticky kisses. Our noses were red, our fingers frosty and our laughter unending.

The girls are fast becoming stepping-stones, markers of all that I have accomplished, even as I might worry about one thing or another, they trump everything. I can nearly see the nuances in Briar's face emerging, a line here, a hollow there. Her eyes becoming more pronounced, a blue so light and clear it seems impossible. Her lashes like something from a fairy tale, with each girlish blink a whoosh as lips the color of coral part to allow titters and sighs to pepper the air like pixie dust.

Avery sits beside her, dark hair wild with twists and turns that practically demand to be tousled. Her eyes are gooey, a blue so dark they sometimes look purple. Dark lashes flutter along lids tipping down ever so slightly, tempting your fingers to trace the lines like waves of frosting on a holiday confection.

And Fin, Fin shimmers— a tight, compact bundle of I can, and if I can't, I will. She smiles as she stretches, questing evermore to not just catch her sisters, but to surpass them. Her exclamations of all our names stop us in or tracks, eliciting "Oh my's" and "She said my name's." She ignites us with the joy of being; ourselves and hers.

So while this week was not, in fact, better. Banging my head against the proverbial wall, desperate to understand why people act the way they do, or why they say one thing an mean another, I found a light. Finley with her howls, Briar with her huffs and Avery with her growls, each remind me of my fluency.

51 months of Briar, 31 months of Avery and 8 months of Fin and I have a mastery of their ways. The shifts in behavior, which can come as abruptly as a winter storm, are familiar to me. The particular pitch of a cry or intensity of a call speak to me with a clarity that makes my way clear. There is a kind of shelter the chaos of my life offers, for all the unpredictability inherent in life with three, there is calm. Here at home, Sean by my side and the girls in all directions, I am certain of peace and belonging.

Next week will be better, I promise.

2008-12-03T21:22:00.007-05:00

He said it as he was leaving, one hand one the door, his face expressionless in the dark. Another late night, back to work after another long day. "Next week will be better. I promise," and his head sank as he walked away looking defeated. I put my own face down, burrowing in the blanket wrapped around Fin, her little hands pressing hungrily as she nursed, reclaiming me as her own after the nightly bedtime cacophony and sibling clamoring for mom.

We rocked as Sean slipped downstairs. I tried to bite back my anger, seemed no use to save it as there was nowhere to point it. He worked every night leading up to Thanksgiving. He worked Thanksgiving morning. He worked Thanksgiving night. He worked the next day and the next night. We worked together the next day. Work, work, work and still the ends don't meet. And when I say ends I mean the dollars and the spaces, sleep never reaches its completion, the day never really ends. And the dollars, oh how they refuse to meet the demands of the bills, making me feel furtive as I make purchases of organic foods and non-toxic cleaners.

We are up before dawn, dashing from one thing to the next. Sitter at 8:30, preschool at 9, pump at 10, pick up at 11:15, make lunches, back to sitter, back to work, eat, work, pump. Back to sitter, home, nurse, play, emails, nurse, do a project, work, email, dinner, nurse. Then it's off to the office to get Sean, home to do dinner, then play, then bed, Sean goes back to work and I stay home, tending to the girls as they pop up like some sort of endless carnival challenge, and then I work. If we're lucky we meet up for a moment in bed, Sean needing to read to unwind, and me needing to work at falling asleep. Before we are ready and before it seems fair, it begins anew.

Finley stirs, her face moves side to side as if my thoughts are intruding her own. My face burns with guilt for being exhausted, for wanting a break. Closing my eyes I lose myself in the moment, I shush her, my fingers skimming her tousled hair and then pausing at her neck as she takes them in her hand. We rock, the worry of another lonely night followed by a resented dawn start to fade. We sit like this, just rocking and letting go until we both drift off—I start as my head falls off the chair. I gasp and look down—she's fine.

Her little head, safe in the crook of my arm, reflects bits of moonlight and a life so filled with blessings that again, I swallow back the guilt of wanting more, or less. I suppose the best I can hope for is to end each day feeling more in tune with the good in my life than the things I wish would change.

I met Sean in the kitchen just before midnight as our three beautiful girls slept upstairs. I had arranged four fresh-from-the-oven gingerbread cookies, made with leftover dough from a family baking project that we did with the girls. The cookies spelled I love you and as he smiled at me and took me in his arms I heard the echo of his voice saying, "Next week will be better, I promise," and I pushed it away with a soft, "When it's all said and done, today is pretty damn perfect."

Afterglow

2008-11-29T13:36:00.002-05:00

I'll only be a moment as too much is waiting. I am overcome with the weight of my blessings, tears coming unbidden as I putter. Folding, cleaning, swinging and cuddling. I check on the girls in the night and their tangled bedclothes and knobby knees make my heart ache. Fin sleeping, arms folded behind her head and legs crossed, steals my breath. Sean's hand reaches for mine as we sit quietly after bedtime. The creaks of our house and the rhythm of our life fills me with a glow of being at peace.

Wishing you the golden embrace of contentment.

Thank you.

2008-11-27T12:55:00.007-05:00

From here:

To here:

For my Fin.

For Briar and Avery.

For Sean.

And for my life.

Peace.

The Right Wrong Turn

2008-11-25T22:21:00.005-05:00

We were driving home after picking Sean up from a late night at the office. The streets were dark, the slick, wet pavement reflecting blinding swaths from the streetlights. There was a sinister element to the night, the headlights of passing cars more intense than normal, the splashes from puddles struck the outsides of the car like violent tears. I turned quickly down a side street, "Let's drive past Briar's school," I chirped.

The girls sat in back, kicking and chattering to Fin's amusement. Sean was beside me, burned out from a day of too many deadlines and too few hours. I turned down another street, driving absentmindedly, pulled by something. I wondered for a moment if something dangerous lay in store on the main road. Sean asked the girls about their day.

"Did you do a project with mom?" he asked turning to look at them.

"Uh-huh," Briar nodded with her eyes squeezed shut and smiled.

I stopped at an intersection and then continued, the front of the car slicing through the night.

"And we did a holiday project. We did it and you can do it too!" Avery exclaimed.

"I can? Is that ok, mom?" Sean asked with a glimmer in his eye.

I'd been rushing lately, my mind unable to settle on anything for more than a moment. The accumulation of worries— money, time and responsibility coupled with the exhaustion of tending to three different little people in the night were catching up. Facing the mirror each morning revealed a more hollow face, dark circles and fatigue that take more than one night to shoo.

"Mom?" Briar asked. "Can we do that at home?"

I nodded. "Of course we can." They began to clamor about the how's, what's and where's of the things we'd do. I smiled. The sounds of my family gently tapping and twirling my worries away. We moved through the night, the familiar road ahead and the markers of home on either side of the car. I rolled toward a stop sign, braking early to prevent the backseat directives. I was nearing the sign when a pick-up truck came from the other direction.

The large tires threw a huge wake as they turned, I braced for a skid or large splash, but before I knew it the truck had raced through the intersection at a speed easily twice the speed limit. The brake lights never flashed as the truck sped into the night. My foot pressed hard on the brake, my heart slammed against my chest and I felt the sensation of losing all strength in my legs.I began to gasp as my eyes tracked back to where the truck had come from. It was to my right.

Sean.
Fin.
Briar.

It was their side of the car. My mind raced, I struggled to understand what had happened. The truck would have hit us. It would have hit them.

"Are you ok?" Sean asked, his eyes shifting from me to the disappearing truck.

"I...that truck, I just...it would have hit us. Killed us." I stammered.

He paused, looked around and said softly, "Three of us. It would have killed three of us."

I was angry. Angry at the truck and angry at myself. Why on earth did I go a different route? What made me think that I had turned off the main road in some prescient act of protecting my family? I began to shake and the image of the truck sailing through the stop sign played over and over again in my head. Sean touched my hand, which pulled me out of it.

I started again toward home. The sounds of my life began again, the girls squealing and giggling as Sean talked to them.

"Ya gotta be silly in the house, ok daddy?" Avery commanded.

"And ya gotta turn me upside down like you dooded last night, ok?" Briar countered.

Pulling into the driveway it occurred to me that I was meant to turn down that road. I was meant to be at that intersection at that precise moment in time. It was a hell of a wake up call, a forcible Are you listening? I have been going too fast, too concerned with all there is to worry about and not nearly aware enough about the blessings.

I have three precious daughters. They wake me in the night and demand more of me than anyone or anything ever has. I have a husband who worships me and is a partner in this sprinting marathon of parenting. I have a life and routine, that though challenging, are beautiful. I am tired, but I am tired from loving and being loved. I just need to slow down.

Thanks to a blur of truck and rainwater on a dark November night, I am slowing down. I am slurping hot cocoa and ice cubes through a straw and smooshing peanut butter and honey through wheat bread on my lunch hour. I am dancing and cuddling, giggling and conspiring.

I am living.

Oh, two, you slay me

2008-11-17T22:19:00.002-05:00

This isn't about Avery, this is Briar. Briar at 2.

Briar at 2, oh, my heart!

If you've been with me a while you may have already seen this, but my, I believe the charm is still strong, the sweetness still delicious.

Squeeze Squeeze

2008-11-14T10:48:00.003-05:00

We were sitting together in the fading afternoon sun, the table before us festooned with bits of blue Play-Doh and imaginatively colored turkeys. The braids I'd set in her hair during the daily sprint to get out the door were unravelling, the spotted ribbons and ties tucked in my pocket after having been torn free during a living room dance session. Her bangs were tickling her eyelashes, swaying and sticking with each blink. Her cheeks, less full each day, bore little sprays of color, part marker, part concentration, as she held a pair of scissors in one hand and a sheet of construction paper in the other.

I held Fin in my lap as I waited, this being our first time with a project involving scissors, I was nervous. Her teacher had told me it was a skill they were working on in the classroom and was the one area where Briar had gotten frustrated. I wanted to help and I knew that meant not helping, such is the often excruciating act of parenting. The paper shook, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. I watched the tips of the scissors waver not cutting and looked at her face, hoping she was ok. Her mouth was open, her jaw twisting back and forth as she moved her fingers, Fin's feet swung gently as I made silent nods of encouragement.

"You see, mom? You just do a squeeze, squeeze. Right like that, just squeeze, squeeze," and we watched as the metal sliced through the grainy paper. She kept cutting, her fingers tiny and pink within the great silver "o"'s of the scissors, paper began falling on the table as the rectangle became a series of different shapes. I felt the familiar splintering in my heart as I watched my sweet Briar continue her amazing ascent into the person she will be, leaving behind this precious shape of my questing four year old.

.

The shoemaker's children

2008-11-11T16:48:00.005-05:00

I'm no shoemaker, but words are my trade and my kids, well, lately they've had no words. No words from me, that is. The kids actually have a lot of words.

Finley continues to beam and trill, "mama."

Avery calls to me with her head cocked, "Anything ok here?" and "What is going on in here, anyway?"

Briar is brimming with pre-school wisdom, "Hoho's elbows are watching," and "Wiggly teeth start coming when you get big."

Sean for his part is another source of bemusement–

"I don't mean to be vain, but I hope I'm a good looking old chick," I said the other night.

He looked at me sweetly, considering my face and then saying, "Me too."

So, I tell you with a brow furrowed with worry that while I craft stories for places like The Sagamore and work on proposals for big companies across the country, my heart aches to be writing about my own story. I'm hoping soon I can sit down and share a good long tear jerker about life with my girls, cause I tell ya, despite the quiet, it's a beautiful, blessed life.

I am so old

2008-11-03T21:29:00.003-05:00

Halloween, beyond the wonder and zeal of toddlers experiencing the power of knocking on doors and receiving compliments and free candy, had a dark side. Throng after throng of older trick-or-treaters passed us and try as I might the force of scathing judgement took hold and I straddled the line between clenched and dropped jaw.

Gore. Whore

Honestly, it seemed that the boys were going for nasty and the girls were going for, ah, nasty. When did that happen? When did Halloween become showing as much skin as possible and being as foul as possible?

I realize that every generation says that their generation had it different, life was harder, times were simpler. Whatever.

I like music. I like singers, by man alive, I am tired of unnecessary and unapologetic extra skin– case in point:

Did she need to yank the shirt up? Will we ever get back to a place where less is more doesn't mean less clothing?

*********

Tomorrow. Vote. You will make a difference.

Joy unmasked

2008-10-30T22:37:00.006-04:00

Halloween at school.

I didn't know what to expect, but I have been preparing for weeks, gathering little things: a new pair of hot pink tights with metallic silver threads here, a pair of pink and purple shimmery slippers there. I had marked the time off, ready to spend Friday morning at school for the Halloween parade. Imagine my surprise when I peeked at the yellow slip affixed to the fridge this morning, just a casual glance as I reached for the milk.

...Thursday, October 30th...

What?!

I bleated to Sean that I had the days mixed up, and so it was that twenty minutes before we were due at school that we began a rather frantic sprint to get Briar and Avery outfitted for a Halloween parade.

******

We arrived at school with robots, princesses and heroes already roaming the halls. I had a camera in my pocket, the battery charged and the memory card free and clear. I imagined that there might be nerves, envy, that in some way I might not have done enough. The enormity of the occasion took me by surprise.

I forget sometimes as I prepare for these moments, that as I worry that my hair may be puffy or that my left leg didn't get shaved, that you are living a future memory– your first officially planned ahead of time play date, your first day of hookey spent at my office, your first Halloween at school.

I held it together as I waited for you downstairs in the gymnasium. I talked to dad and played with Ave, I asked other moms questions and found myself completely unworried about anything. When the music started I was a little surprised and then the flutters started in my stomach. Would you be scared? Would you be happy? Would you be able to find us?

You were in the second group and as I waited to see you walk into the room I felt the sum of my worries and effort create a fissure, my heart literally breaking. I have felt this before, this nearly unbearable panic, a need to protect you, to prevent harm, hurt or worry. I would just do anything and for a moment I worried that what I didn't do, the date I got wrong, the ribbons I didn't put in your hair, the to-do I didn't make, would create a disappointment for you.

And then, there you were. Your face was different, there was a change in your carriage, a shift in your presence. I waited, not calling out your name as I wanted to. You watched your teacher and stuck close to the boy in front of you, matching him step for step. Your shoes peeked out from gossamer layers of goddess gown and the wings from grandma caught the light and shot flashes of light our way. Avery was murmuring in awe, "Look, it's Briar. It's Briar my sister, the princess at her school."

I smiled and then you turned, looking right at us. Your face was the purest portrait of joy I have ever seen. Your head tilted to the side as if you couldn't keep it all in. Your cheeks were flushed with satisfaction, a euphoria unreachable through things or promises. We watched you without moving, I snapped pictures and beamed.

My beautiful Briar. The cracks of worry filled as the impact of your joy reached me. So many people, so many costumes and you were filled with an infectious bliss. Every mistake I have made, every harsh word I've let slip in a moment of haste, they all slipped away and all that was left was you. My pride in your independence and delight stayed with me all day.

Sitting here hours after you went to bed I can still see that smile, I can still feel the butterflies of being your mom. You are amazing and I just wanted you to know that the magic you felt today is the feeling you have brought to my life.

I love you, my joy.

Don't, k?

2008-10-21T23:47:00.002-04:00

Her voice is scratchy, a forceful whisper as she says, "Mama, I don't want you to go on a trip again. Ok? With Finley? Don't go to the airport again. Stay here with me and Briar and Daddy and Finley. Always, ok?" Her dark hair tickles my skin, thick ringlets, lash-teasing bangs and sticky flyaways all conspire to engulf my face. Her cheeks are cool and her plump lips twist to and fro against my jaw as her hands clutch my neck and her body presses into mine.

There is no impetus, no declaration of an approaching trip, no reaching for keys or packing of bags. These requests come unbidden and with them memories of my own childhood, "Mom, promise me you won't die. Ok? I just, I know that you aren't, but don't. I don't want you to die." I can remember so clearly how in the brightest moments, the happiest of times, the fear of losing her would clutch me, leaving me desperate to say something for fear that my silence would invite a loss.

I don't believe Avery has that same panic, in fact I think she is playing me to some extent, but every so often there is a catch in her voice and I know. I wrap her in my arms and murmur in her ear, as much for her as for myself, "I won't, baby. I won't go on any more trips until we go somewhere together," and then we rock, holding one another and letting our worries slip away.

As the minutes pass and as new days dawn I find myself, along with the swirling wisps of little girl within, clinging to the words a gypsy spoke in a whisper,

"Awww, it's you. I been thinkin' 'bout you. You know dis mean? You gonna live a long time. Oh, so long. Sweet, very sweet with daughters."

I hope so, sweet woman, I hope so.

My family

2008-10-20T21:51:00.005-04:00

Grandma came to visit, which, though it leaves a gaping when she leaves, has its perks, not the least of which are pictures. While my girls continue to talk as if Grandma hung the moon, invented unicorns and conceived Yo Gabba Gabba, we have a rich bounty of photos.

An excerpt from a front stoop photo shoot. I am delighted soul-deep by how it perfectly captures the essence of my life.

Love you, mom. Thank you.

She said the cutest thing

2008-10-15T23:12:00.004-04:00

I know that all things are relative, but some things cut through things like ideological differences, age variables and geographical data, things like toddlers interpreting pop culture. Luckily in our house that has yet to include Hannah Montana or Bratz Dolls. Lately Briar has taken to asking to watch the "pirates," which means Pirates of the Caribbean. It's kind of scary, really scary actually.

But Briar, ever the sweet-faced, let's-all-be-happy-girl, sees no evil.

"Are you scared, honey? You want to watch something else?" I asked as I stepped closer to her, my hand squeezing her should softly.

"No. No, mom. The pirates. But do you see that guy? Do you see him? That guy who ate too many noodles? His face is hurting because of so many noodles."

Nice try Disney, my kid thinks your Davy Jones is the Ramen-achey face guy.

The force of Grandma

2008-10-13T23:12:00.009-04:00

Grandma came to town. She was here for one week, seven exquisite days. The girls reveled in each moment, falling asleep even as they murmured, "Grandma will be here in the morning?" and then stampeding from their room to ours to ask, but not wait for an answer, if they could go crawl into bed with Grandma. It was exhausting and exhilarating. I watched her looking at the girls, many moments slipping so deep into an emotion that she seemed suspended in future reminiscences or tucked into memories of other little girls and a time when the girls cried, "Mom" to her. Another taste of the startlingly piercing blend of joy and sorrow that is parenting. And daughtering.

I love you, mom.

I've just spent time on her blog and I fear I may not recover. The stories that are shared there seep into my soul, coloring every part of me with gratitude for the health of my three girls and sending my spirit soaring with pride in the work that she helps make possible.

Between what I saw, what I read and now the pictures that I have to fuel my own reminiscing, I am simply over capacity and feel as if it will take a good long cry to get me back on track.

Here's a glimpse of our week with Grandma*

*All photo and memory credits go to Grandma. Mom.

Wider

2008-10-08T09:52:00.004-04:00

Avery has discovered her inner shutterbug and has been cruising around the house using everything from sponges to Kleenex boxes as cameras. The other day I let her use the actual camera. Seems her favorite pose for her subjects is with mouth wide open.

"K mama, go-nuh take your pict-cha.
Smile. Hode still. Smile big and open!"

"No, now do it bigger. Hode still."

"Go-nuh take your pict-cha, still. Be still.
Open wide. Wider. Widest ever, mama."

"Never mind. Gonna get my bear. You stay dair."

So there I was

2008-10-03T21:19:00.006-04:00

I'm not sure when it happened, because the last time I checked I was a mom with three little girls, babies even. Looking at the pictures Sean snapped in Burlington, I see very clearly how big my babies have gotten.

And Fin? She spent the day in the stroller, kicking and gurgling and looking every inch the "I'll-be-sitting-up-eating-cruising-and-talking-by-Christmas" little sister that she is.

I'm trying to chase the lump in my throat with the joy of cracking eggs and coloring inside the lines with my daughters. The sweetest of bittersweets is parenting.

This itch!

2008-09-30T06:23:00.002-04:00

Three births, two of which passed without the assistance of drugs, and a stinking cast has me howling with "This is hard" and "This itches" and "Blah blah itch." I am annoying myself with it all, particularly my superhero-like sense of smell. It is as if my right arm has been swapped with a 7 month old, cafeteria sponge that was left to marinade in a vat of sweat and ass under a hot sun before being attached to my person.

Putting Finley to bed is an arduous affair as just as I have her heavy lidded and turning for the mattress and got to lay her down, the back of her silky little head passes the fiberglass ripples on my arm and she jolts as her body makes the transfer that is 3 inches higher than it would be if I had the proper use of my arm. Wailing and crocodile tears ensue, mostly from Fin.

We begin anew and of course we do so to the full chorus of:

"Maw-um! Why is Finley crying?" from Briar and, "Actually, maybe I think she needs some milk, actually. Ya think?" from Ave.

Eventually she goes down, but now before the inside of my cast is a hot, funky mess from the pinpricks of sweat and itch that fester as my panic mounts that it will truly be hours before bedtime is over and morning will already be nipping at the door.

It was around 5 when we came down this morning, Fin was a wide eyed vision of bliss and I was able to set aside the mid-morning creakiness within my ratty pink cast. We played, cooing at a baby doll, drooling over the red block letters of a puzzle and gnawing, pawing and gumming each other. The light outside bore the weight of winter just around the bend, the dark clouds rubbing shoulders with neighborhood trees kindled an excitement for the stews I'll be making as the days grow cooler.

Fin pressed her toes into my side and I turned to her, she pulled herself up and beamed, I could almost hear her breathy exclaim, "I'm'a sittin', mama." Beyond her was a ballon, loving bundled in a silky blanket, Ave's baby. On the bookshelf 9 coins were arranged in a line, "Look, mom, I made stairs with the money," Briar had boasted last night. "Uh bah, bah, bah, bahb uh," Fin blurts to break my reverie. I press my face into Fin's and she grabs a hunk of cheek giving a double flutter kick of delight.

These girls, this life, keep me at joy's door. I am at once at peace and itching to slip deeper into each moment.

Psst...

2008-09-25T21:36:00.001-04:00

I was over at Slouching Mom's place today. You can go take a peek. I'm going to kiss my sleeping babies again.

Envy*

2008-09-24T22:02:00.002-04:00

Do you remember the last time you slept like this?

That's a nap the morning after a full night's sleep.

*Short and sweet post for Janet to read or not read as her Reader allows.

Nutmeg is my favorite spice

2008-09-23T12:54:00.002-04:00

You've heard the term girl crush, right? Well, I have long harbored a crush on Meg. She was the first blogger I read that wrote about demanding the most out of educators, she talked about the importance of nurturing magic at the holidays, she shared tales of life with four kids and a husband who still sends her heart racing. She is quirky and true, driven and game, honest and intelligent, but most of all she has a spirit that inspires me, as a mom, a wife, a woman and a professional.

Today I am posting something she wrote that ignited something in me. I am worried, yet hopeful, and now, thanks to Meg, I am doing something so that 40 odd days from now I don't wonder if the outcome might have been different had I acted.

Please read this post from Meg and if it inspires you, do something. Act!

Every day I wake up and I want to write about the election.

Every day I want to post you tube videos of Sarah Palin scaring the hell out of me.

Every day I want to give homage to John Stewart or post drafts of my hate mail to Karl Rove.

But I know for sure it's no longer enough.

I want to do more than add my voice to the millions of Americans crying out for change.

I want to be an agent of that change. I want to make a difference.

Talking about it is no longer enough!

Writing about it is no longer enough!

Leaving it to others is no longer enough!

In 2000, when we elected 'experience', my vote wasn't enough.

In 2004, when we elected 'experience', my vote wasn't enough.

This time I'm not just voting for intelligence.

This time I'm not just voting for integrity.

This time I'm not just voting for bold initiative.

This time I'm working for the campaign. I'm a member of my local volunteer team.

BECAUSE ONE VOTE IS NO LONGER ENOUGH!

We do not have enough volunteers. We need more people to register voters, to persuade, to get out the vote.

It's actually a lot of fun and I've met some amazing people.

Just two hours a week can make a difference.

You can sign up to volunteer here.

You can find your local volunteer coordinator here.

Or e-mail me at meg[at]simplynutmeg[dot]com and I'll get you connected with the right person.

Please join me in spreading this No Longer Enough campaign:

If you can't join the team, please publish this post or write your own post and link to it on your blog and spread the word to your readers. Many of us just need a little push (someone approached me at the grocery store) to get in the game.

Just think; if every Blogger recruited just one volunteer...

Maybe we're what we've been waiting for.

And here's where I put my money where my mouth is:

If you join in spreading the word, publish this post, or write your own post and include the banner, sign the Mr. Linky at my site. If I get 200 links or more before October 10th, I'll use a random number generator to choose a winner, and I'll give away one brand new Dyson.

Because my one vote is no longer enough.

Thanks, Meg!

Casting a different story

2008-09-21T20:28:00.002-04:00

So the hand holding the camera is officially broken, has been for 2 weeks, but now it's casted and raging.

Luckily there are ducks to watch while mama mends.

Be writing again soon.

Omama

2008-09-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

I don't dish politics here, except when I do. I won't beat around the-better-than-Bush. I am voting for Barack Obama.

Obama Mama.
Bleeding heart.
Sucker.
Whatever.

I really don't care what I am called or what anyone else believes, so shoot away with the negative comments, or drop my blog from your reader. I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Sarah Palin as President is not an eventuality I am willing to be responsible for creating.

Wheel. Of. Fortune.

2008-09-12T15:14:00.001-04:00

Sitting in the Vegas airport waiting for our 1:35 flight home by way of Chicago. There are people playing the slots, the Wheel of Fortune slots. Oh, the misery.

Fin is entertaining us with kicks and gurgles and, so help me, little bleats that sound decidedly like, Mama!"

Could it be?

We'll see, odds are we'll walk in the house and she'll say declaratively, "Dada," for now though, I am hearing "mama" and I love it.

Home soon.

Will you cuddle with me?

2008-09-10T22:57:00.003-04:00

I am sitting in an incredibly comfortable chair, there isn't a sound save the odd sigh from Fin as she sleeps in the bed behind me and the occasional whiz of a passing truck on the street below. I am showered with freshly shaved legs, I have a stack of magazines I could be reading. The laptop is here, fully charged and ready to go. There is no dinner to make, no laundry to wash or fold or even put away. No dishes. No toys. No shedding dog, no ringing phone. My to-do-list was so very short I finally used the Biore strip that's been kicking around for six months. I can watch anything I want at whatever volume I want, I can eat PB&Js for dinner.

I hate it!

I want my chaos back. I want my girls, hungry and cranky, tired and demanding. I want three separate requests for dinner from one child and two from another. I want particular nightgown requests and relentless begging for the singing of songs with lyrics I do not know. I want a late husband and a messy house. I want junk mail cluttering the counter and empty Triscuit boxes on the floor.

I am sitting here tonight without a care in the world wishing more than anything in the world that someone would say, "Please, will you stay and cuddle with me for one little minute?"

I miss home.

Sean. Briar. Ave. Babies, Fin and I are coming home in two nights and I cannot wait. I love you.

It's the blue that gets me

2008-09-09T23:34:00.004-04:00

I never noticed eye color before Sean. Never. Friends would ask about a guy's eye color and i honestly wouldn't be able to answer.

Now I can. Blue. True blue. They are the eyes of my daughters and the eyes of my best friend, a pale blue, cool and inviting. Steady, loving, my favorite kind of blue.

He sent me an email tonight recounting the night's events.

I told them a bedtime story about how Mama and Fin had been captured and were made to work in a cavern.

"Were they pirates?" Briar wondered.

"Pirates?" Ave repeated, eyebrows up. This is getting good, said the eyebrows.

I went with it. "Yes, Mama and Fin were in the cavern with Pirates, and their job was to charm the pirates out of their money."

"Their Gold?" asked Briar.

"Treasure?" said Ave, eyebrows no longer visible.

"You betcha. And if Mama and Fin can work it with the pirates to get them to give up that treasure, they can come home."

Such a seemingly little thing, but imagining him sitting there, the nightlight casting stars on the ceiling, the girls listening with freshly scrubbed faces glued to him, and telling this fanciful story of our trip made me melt. I forget how wonderful he is with them, how imaginative and magical he can be.

And Fin, well she's got that same magic and more of that incredible blue. She is working her magic, earning those ducats so that we can get back home, back to our pack of blue.

Owning one's quirks

2008-09-08T09:13:00.002-04:00

I won't say that it is turning 35 that's done it, I think it has more to do with three kids, a husband, a mortgage and enough work to cover them. I am beginning to tread a path that involves less and less apology for what makes me happy. Now granted, Sean would tell you that the path is rather unmarked and I veer off quite frequently, returning to a territory of apologies and clearance stickers. And he's right, but damnit I walk that other path more than ever before and like the dawn, I am beginning to see how exquisitely beautiful and how fundamentally it is tied to living a happy life without resentment.

Before this trip Sean cajoled me into buying some clothes (I'm sorry, I didn't say I walked the path voluntarily, or that I discovered it myself. It does take a boot in the keester* now and again.) Saturday there was a haircut, really two, but let's not dwell on salon chair horror and just be grateful instead that there are last minute saves that transform the heinous into the divine.

Sitting here in the hotel room, Fin happily splayed in a leather chair after her night in excruciatingly sumptuous bedding (Our daughters have an unapologetic taste for the finer things, something that at once startles and delights this still-learning-to-be-pampered mom) I have the new clothes hung in the closet, fancy new hair products and makeup set out in the bathroom and the ring Sean bought me at Christmas sparkling on my finger like it was born to be in Vegas.

I discovered this morning, as I took a bath while Fin happily sucked her thumb and owned the king size bed. There are women who swear by candle lit baths with a glass of wine and a good book and others who chirp that great chocolate does the trick. I am neither of those, I am a girl who will take a Turkey Club and diet coke for bed and wake up with Starbucks brewed extra strong and a bath with a fresh razor and consider herself content. The best part, not only did I feel content, I felt like I deserved it, which makes everything that much sweeter.

Go do something you deserve and then come back and brag about it, ok?

*And this keester of mine? It looks incredible in my new jeans ;)

Yesterdays into Tomorrow

2008-09-03T21:20:00.006-04:00

Briar.
My I-just-can't-sleeper.
My impossible to resist ringleted princess.
My grace.

You have a love of language and learning that cannot be suppressed. Just this morning you woke, earlier than usual, and the first thing you did was run to your bookshelf, fingering the spines and asking me to read the words, pronounce the letters. The morning sun shone through casting a B's shadow on the wall above you.

Even covered in dirt, bugs swarming at your face and sweat dripping from your brow, you find the royal magic in every moment, your imagination ablaze.

You are impish and sly. You challenge and test, infuriate and delight, fulfill and inspire. The magic waiting around each corner.

You are my first baby, always my first. Many have said it before me, and many will say it after, you taught me how to be a mom. We learned together, we played together and we grew into each other.

And that, sweet Briar, is why I am struggling tonight. Tomorrow, 12 days shy of your 4th birthday, you start school. I know that you are ready, in some ways I am too. Your questing, whether it is for friends and play dates, or for reading and understanding, has stretched just beyond my reach. I cannot keep up.

You are ready for classmates and teachers, projects and recess. You are ready to explore the hours of the day without me calling out the time. Tomorrow I am going to walk you up to that brick building and let you go. I'll tell you to have fun and I'll promise to come back for you. It will be the hardest thing I've done so far. And the easiest? Well the easiest is this, no matter what happens, no matter how high the number following the word "grade," I will be there to catch you.

Hmming, Grrring, Mmming

2008-09-02T16:44:00.002-04:00

Briar's favorite game:

Hey (insert name). Want one of these? Which one?

Other person: That one.

Briar: NO! You can't have that one. It's mine.

**********

Avery's pat answer: Because I want to. Because I want to and I want to. Beee-cuuuuz.

**********

Finley's latest past time: Pretending to need to nurse and instead giving painful hickeys to side of my breast.

**********

Fitted Sheets...might I suggest the term, "Unfitted" or "Never fits" or "bwahahaha, suckah!"

**********

Postpartum hair loss: Suckage.

**********

Waking up at midnight to the whisper: "The girls look like you when they are sleeping."

Sigh, swoon. One little thing to erase the rest.

Taking Note

2008-08-31T10:34:00.006-04:00

The summer has gone by in what can only be described as a blur. Briar starts school on Thursday, Avery is speaking in paragraphs and Finley is sleeping through the night. Yesterday we celebrated a milestone: a run. We loaded Bri in the single jogging stroller, while Ave and Fin rode together in the double. Armed with iPods and water we ran block after block, passing through the neighborhoods in ways we've never been able: together.

Briar beamed, Fin kicked and Ave squealed. After a while, as we found our rhythm, they slept. And Sean and I reveled in the freedom to just run and watch and experience.

Can you remember the last time you did that?

HRC

2008-08-27T11:15:00.003-04:00

Sitting there, the pomp and circumstance of an event that I did not feel a part of blaring before me, I waited. I sneered at sign waving spectators, scoffed at commentary on certain figures and I waited. It was unclear if I was waiting to hear Hillary or waiting to feel more anger toward Obama. I was angry at a country that seemed to be staring down two dead ends. My unwillingness to not vote had me musing that maybe, just maybe, I'd cross party lines.

As the video rolled and I saw footage of a young woman, heard the narrative of a life lived with the belief that anything could be achieved, I began to weep. I thought of my daughters and their future. I remembered being a young girl myself and rallying for Mondale and Ferraro in Eugene, Oregon. I revisited images of my mom railing at the tv while Phyllis Schlafly spoke. Then Chelsea Clinton took the stage. She was radiant and calm, her voice clear.

A woman.
A daughter.
And a child raised to believe she could be anything she wanted.

"My hero. My mom. Hillary Rodham Clinton."

And there she was. My breath caught as I watched history being made. Full minutes passed as she waited for the audience to quiet, so that she could address the expectation, realize or defy the theories of the talking heads. Her brilliant orange suit stood in stark contrast to the blues and reds of the stage. She walked back and forth, and as I watched I felt the weight of what that must have been like, to have fought so hard and then to be there in a kind of defeat. My eyes burned with fresh tears, and then she began to speak.

She was so much more than I could have ever hoped, but in fact she was everything I had believed her to be. She was sharp and insightful, strong and passionate. There was pragmatism and optimism, concession and challenge. I listened to almost every word, stopping only a few times to be angry, to debate why she wasn't giving a different speech. As she asked us to consider why we were there, whether it was for her, or for parents without health care, for children with unemployed parents, everything changed.

My anger faded. My resolve went. And my mind changed. Last night, as my heart broke, the direction I must take became clear. Last night Hillary Rodham Clinton, mom, hero, Senator from New York, daughter, wife won me over again and in doing so she secured my vote for Obama.

The Toddler Yin and Yang

2008-08-26T09:44:00.003-04:00

Amidst the moldy sippy cups, unidentifiable splotches on the carpet, between the tantrums and the moonlit cuddles, there can be balance. If we are able to breathe deeply and remember, in those excruciating moments that we have to scoop our almost-four year olds up and flee from the store as they threaten to say even more loudly in the direction of the acne-faced 20-something bagging our groceries, "But why does that guy have those red spots all over his face?"

We will realize that before long we'll be standing, ironing a shirt or doing some equally mundane task, and the silence will be broken by the flatulence of a two year old. As we turn to admonish gently with a, "Say excuse me," we'll instead hear, "Whoopsie, my poop just burped!"

This parent of toddlers PSA brought to you by the letter Y.

Sewn by murmurs and touch

2008-08-24T20:47:00.008-04:00

There are neither the words to explain it, nor time enough to invent new ones to fill the void. Each of my girls has seeped into my very essence, blurring the lines between self and sensation, at times it is truly as if the love I feel is the person I am.

Briar, with her never-beforeness and utter princessness, took hold of me the moment they laid her in my arms.

Avery, with her shocking dark hair and striking almond eyes, arrived with an of course air, slipping into our routine and blazing her own trail.

I love them with a fierceness that threatens to consume me, and now there is Fin. I am desperate to put pen to paper, to preserve in perpetuity, how she touched me. I could tell you that the coolness of her skin, the familiar wet of her lips on my neck are my touchstones. I gauge each decision by how it will impact those lips, those eyes. I consider her, god help me, I weigh the world outside against the magic she holds, and not just for me, for each of us.

Fin has laced us together, in a look to Briar, a touch of Avery's nose and a gurgle sent pointedly in Sean's direction. We are like a tree's limb, weaving and bobbing through the current of a wending river, five leaves on one slender, yet gnarly branch. We bump rocks and shoulder winds, and though we skip about the water, we hold tight to our branch, the edges of each leaf touching another.

Fin is inside me and around me, and, as with her sisters, I will take my last breath trying to communicate how precious she is to me. How she was part of the march that led me to me.

Oh, my Fin, I am so glad that as you are you, I am your mama.

I sing in the car

2008-08-22T23:43:00.003-04:00

Why don't you stay?*

2008-08-14T16:03:00.004-04:00

Sometimes memories come unbidden, leaving us weeping for someone we've lost or reminding of us of something we swore we'd never forget, other times it seems as if you can hear the gentle whir of water turning to ice, moment into memory.

I was sitting with the girls this afternoon, Fin in her swing and Briar and Avery, fat markers clutched in little hands, at the table on either side of me as I clicked away at my laptop. It was one of those rare moments when everyone was sated, all the necessary drinks and snacks had been doled out, diapers were fresh, art supplies were plentiful and my mood was serene.

"Mom, will you turn on the music like we had on last night yesterday at lunch?" Briar asked.

"Last night yesterday at lunch?" I asked with a grin.

"Uh-huh," Briar chirped bobbing her head and making her curls, the exact color of perfect Sunday morning pancakes, bounce along her shoulders.

I crossed the room and pressed play on the iPod, an old show tune began playing as I sat back down. We sat in companionable silence, markers whispering and scratching on bits of paper, occasionally whistling along the table and the rhythmic tapping of my fingers on slick black keys lulling Fin to sleep.

After a while a song came on that inexplicably took me back home to Yakima. The easy strum of a guitar laced with a woman's stripped down vocals led me back in time, to dusty roads winding through orchards, to cool evenings and impossibly wide blue skies. I was in my twenties, no kids, no husband, no plan.

I used to walk up the steps from my office in the basement of the theatre, not knowing the weather or the temperature. The sun always shocked me, so strong and pure. My drive home was toward the setting sun and sometimes it was almost too bright to drive. I'd zig and zag, eventually finding myself out in West Valley, enjoying the wind and possibility. I'd turn the music up and imagine the lyrics having been written for me.

I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly

I wanna sleep on the hard ground
In the comfort of your arms
On a pillow of bluebonnets
In a blanket made of stars

Oh it sounds good to me

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you

*****

And we danced
Out there on that empty hardwood floor
The chairs up and the lights turned way down low
The music played, we held each other close
And we danced

My daydreams were always about falling in love, finding my happily ever after. Each drive felt like it brought me closer to what I was meant to find, who, I was meant to find. They were sweet days, easy daydreams. No worries, no hurt, just wide open possibilities beneath a perfect desert sky.

It's ten years later and three thousand miles away now. I have three daughters and, while not a cowboy, a husband who has flown this girl so very high. Sitting here at the table revisiting a time and place that made me who I am today, I feel so very lucky to be living in my happily-ever-after.

I can just see the smile on that girl, wind in her hair, cruising through the Yakima hills.

*Embedding on the video is disabled, but here's the link.

Soflty into the night

2008-08-09T22:01:00.005-04:00

Daughter. Sister. Wife. Friend. Mother. Grandmother. Great grandmother. Beautiful human being.

Carolyn Frost Barnes.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. ~William Wordsworth

A good life

2008-08-07T16:09:00.011-04:00

I've read some things lately that have sobered me and made me take stock of very little things that are in fact, very big. Pardon me while I give thanks for:

Three extraordinary little girls.

An amazing husband.

A finished kitchen.

Love.

Laughter.

Health.

Family.

Friends

Joy.

My dear friend Anna wrote this morning with worrying news. If you do one thing after you read this, let it be to pray for Anna's mom and family. If you do two things, pray for Anna's mom and be grateful for all that you have, warts and all.

And, for a bit of of joy, please pop over to Mrs. Chicken's place. She had her baby and since I can't deliver a casserole, I'm guest posting over there. Stop over.

Caught in a wrinkle

2008-08-04T22:14:00.006-04:00

It's been done to death, but it hasn't been done in this way, for this baby.

Finley. My sweet little Fin. She is just past the three month mark and she has me held blissfully captive. I will sit at my computer waiting for the words to come, whether for an email or a blog entry, and I will be drawn away. Inevitably I will lift my head from the screen to find her watching me.

Her face is an intoxicating blend of Briar and Avery, but more than that, it is Fin. Her eyes are deep and dark, a stormy sapphire ringed with a startling shimmer of icy blue. They sit within a face so pure it steals my breath, smooth skin that seems at once porcelain and caramel, healthy and unblemished. Her nose and lips are a study in symmetry and just as I wonder if perhaps I have done something wrong, her eyes flash and in a moment she is one smile extending from dark silky curls to petal soft toes.

I can feel my body loosen, a virtual puddle in my chair as the space between her eyes maps the journey of a lifetime—fold after fold, wrinkle after wrinkle, her smile echoes across her face. I imagine the months and years ahead, the changes that will pass, but the enduringness of her, of the way that even now, she is who she will be.

I lower my face to hers, her face calm, patient. Her smile softens and she waits and as I lean into kiss her she turns, raising her face to mine and we touch. The press of her cheek on mine is more hug than any arms have given me, her quiet lips a stronger I love you than any voice has uttered. I lift her in my arms and a warmth envelopes me, holding her tight and close I am alive, the flutters of her in my belly like distant church bells.

We sway in song. Mama and baby. Me and Fin. A wrinkle in time.

Meanies be damned

2008-07-31T10:20:00.004-04:00

It's mama's birthday today.
No time to fret over not fitting in or playing second fiddle to a cell phone.
I have three beautiful girls.
Last night I heard Finley's laugh for the first time and it was pure magic.
Coffee was waiting for me this am.
I am married to my best friend (and resident coffee maker and deliverer of lattes and designs.)
I love my job.
It's sunny.
My house is clean.

Today I am 35 and happy.

Happy sigh.

Waking up to yesterday

2008-07-28T16:45:00.003-04:00

I poked my head through the door this morning, intending just to peek, but feeling the morning air I had to step outside. Beyond our threshold I visited the past. The air was cool, damp even. The light had the calmer, weightier feel of a late August morning, there was a scent of endings. I padded to the edge of the porch and felt the cool planks beneath my bare feet, the morning air crept beneath my shirt and I drew a deep breath.

It was 9 years earlier, before kids, before New York. Summer was loping to a slumber, the intense, whirlwind days of June and July were past and the melancholy of another season's close was seeping in. The memories of my time took root and though I didn't know it at the time, I was both meeting and saying goodbye to my future.

This morning, while my husband and my babies slept I traveled back in time. I kissed a boy, who back then was just my baby.

Nexterday

2008-07-25T16:56:00.003-04:00

"Mama, I miss you and I love you nexterday," Avery said as she kissed first my elbows, then my knees, and finally my shoulders.

"Do you mean yesterday or tomorrow?" I asked sweeping her bangs from her eyes.

"Just nexterday, mom. I was loving and missing you," she replied matter of factly after kissing my cheeks.

Nexterday is my new favorite day.